Diversity of Native Populations.

From the first contacts between Europeans and North American Indians to the present day, the area which today is the United States and Canada has been home to thousands of indigenous populations. Although most researchers have concluded that Native Americans came to the Western Hemisphere via a land bridge from Asia, this does not mean that all indigenous peoples shared a common language or culture. Differences in climate and history created marked distinctions among native groups. In the northern reaches of the continent, in what is today much of eastern Canada and northern New England, the climate was too cool to permit much agriculture or permanent settlement. Instead these populations were nomadic, traveling from place to place to keep ahead of the weather and to find food in summer and winter. Plains Indians in the western part of the continent also led largely nomadic...