Historical-cultural areas

The indigenous population of North America for many centuries accommodated to the climate, relief and other natural features of this continent. Usually large groups of native peoples are distinguished that differ in the way of obtaining food, peculiarities of their way of life, traditions, art and religious believes. The territories of these groups’ habitat are referred to by ethnographers as historical-cultural areas. Here are the main of them. Arctic - areas in Canada, Greenland and Alaska where sea hunters (Aleuts and Eskimo) lived. In Sub-Arctic, i.e. in taiga zone, there lived peoples hunting forest beasts – north Athabaskan and Algonquin. Indians of the North-West coast also hunted and fished. Here, as well as in the neighboring area (Plateau – basins of Columbia and Fraser Rivers) rivers were rich with salmon, which provided people with bounteous food. Inhabitants of California were collectors and hunters, and Indians of the east of the continent were mostly engaged in agriculture. Another important area is South-West – here people grew maize in desert oases and hunted small game. The Great Valleys (or simply Valleys) is the area of buffalo horse-hunters, but some groups of Indians here were also mostly engaged in agriculture. 

Sometimes the borders of historical-cultural areas are distinct, while in most cases they are vague and relative. The time of these areas’ formation is also different. Thus, the culture of the horse-hunters of the Great Valleys emerged not earlier than the end of the 16th – beginning of the 17th century with the appearance of horses adopted from Europeans. The golden age of the culture of the South-West dates to the 10th – 12th centuries, but it roots deep into earlier periods.  

Among the historical-cultural areas represented on the exposition are: the Arctic (Aleuts and Eskimos), the Sub-Arctic (northern Athabaskan), the North-West coast (Tlingit), California (Pomo, Miwok), the North-East (Iroquois), the Valleys (Sioux, Arapaho, etc.) and the South-West (Pueblo).