Oral traditions (history, mythology, folklore, and other foundations of a culture that have been passed by spoken word, often in the form of stories, from generation to generation within a culture group) strongly link tribal origins to the land on which the tribes traditionally lived.
In this chapter, most of the information about the arrival of the first immigrants and their migrations through the American continents—North and South America—comes from the evidence uncovered by archaeologists (scientists who study past human activity by uncovering and examining fossils, artifacts, and buildings from earlier eras). They have pieced together some proven facts and then made some theories (assumptions based on careful analysis of the available information) about what the evidence means. The result is a tale of immigration not unlike later tales: The earliest Americans were pioneers who faced danger and extreme conditions in a new and strange environment, probably to make better opportunities for themselves and their families or to avoid danger or hunger in their current location. After many generations of traveling to new regions, groups of these first Americans began to settle, and they adapted to the specific environments in which they settled. Their societies were built around using the local resources—fishing, farming, hunting, gathering, or trading.
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