Study Questions --Fill-in-the-blank Fill in the blank with words found in the text of Crossroads of the Past. 1. The Paleo Indians hunted big game, especially the elephant- like ___________. 2. The route of the Paleo Indians into the New World was the subcontinent land bridge between Asia and Alaska that scholars call ___________. 3. Between 5000 and 4000 B.C. the ____________ people lived throughout most of Arkansas. Their trash deposits or _________ reveal a diet that included lost of hickory nuts. 4. The first town and important mounds and earthworks in North America were built by native Americans at the __________ site in northeast Louisiana, same thirty miles south of the Arkansas state line. 5. Probably used for duck hunting, the ________ weapon of the Poverty Point peoples assisted of three small stone weights connected by cords. The source of the stone weight was near Magnet Cove, Arkansas. 6. The first platform mound builders in Arkansas were the Plum Bayou people whose great political and religious center was the _________ mound group southeast of Little Rock. 7. Between A.D. 900 and A.D. 1200 the _______________ achieved an agricultural revolution, moving from being part-time gardeners to being almost full-time farmers. 8. It was not soldiers and colonists of Europe that killed the Indians of North America, it was the ________, the deadly microbes they unknowingly brought with them. 9. Paleo Indians used spears with fluted points, known today as clovis points, to hunt big game, _______ Ice Age animals that no longer exist. 10. The Woodland era saw technological advances with the use of pottery and changes in food preparation. Especially important was to crush or _________ nuts, shells and all and to boil them in a pot to separate nut oil and nut meats from shells. 11. Corn allowed the Mississippian population to increase dramatically. But they paid a price with increased tooth decay since the high carbohydrate food stuck to teeth forming an ideal environment for ________ that cause decay. 12. Long before the bow and arrow appeared, the _________ was the main weapon of the American Indians was 9,500 B.C. to A.D. 500. 13. Mississippians used ________ that were simple stone axes for cutting down trees to clear fields for planting and to get wood for building their houses and their elaborate fortifications. 14. The Caddo tribes in southwest Arkansas and northwest Arkansas had a ____________ on salt production, a vital ingredient in Indians diet in the Mississippian Era when they ate lots of beans, corn and squash and no longer got enough meat to obtain naturally the minimum amount of sodium required to maintain good health.   Study Questions--Essays 1. Who were the first people to reach North and South America? Where did they come from? How? Why? 2. What was the principal weapon of the Paleo Indians? Explain how it was used. What animals were hunted with it? 3. Why were the first 2,000 years of the Archaic era extremely stressful for the people of North America? 4. How was the life of the Tom's Brook peoples in Arkansas different form their Paleo Indian ancestors? 5. Where is Poverty Point? Why is it important? 6. Describe how "Poverty Point objects" were used for cooking. 7. When was pottery first used on a large scale in Arkansas? What was its purpose? 8. What religious purpose was served in the mound building of the Hopewell peoples? What different religious purposes were expressed with the "platform mounds" of the Plum Bayou people? 9. How was the diet, housing, and art of the Mississippians different from those of the Poverty Point peoples? 10. When did tooth decay begin among the Indians? Why? 11. What was the "Black Drink" used by the Mississippians? Why was it used? 12. Describe the Mississippian game of chunkey. 13. Where did the Caddo people live in Arkansas? How did they differ in lifestyle from the Parkin and Nodena peoples of the Mississippian culture? 14. What caused the destruction of the Mississippians? What role did Hernando De Soto's army play in their disappearance? 15. Where do modern descendants of Indians who once lived in Arkansas now live?