CHAPTER ONE Food History The ­human food history of the United States actually begins with migra- tions of ­peoples to the North and South American continents. The first immigrants may have arrived as early as 20,000 BCE during the last Ice Age. They ­ were hunters-­gatherers who originated in northeast Asia but had lived for thousands of years in Beringia, the cold lands that once lay between Asia and modern Alaska. Living in small bands, they preyed on megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and ­ horses that lived on the dry tundra along the edges of the ­ great ice sheets, as well as on fish and seals along the unglaciated coasts. Over time, as the ice sheets began to melt away, groups moved slowly southward into the continent, reaching Chile in South Amer­i­ca by 14,500 BCE. ­ Because historically, Amer­ i ­ ca’s food comes from the land and ­ water, much depends on geography and climate. This was especially the case before food was industrialized—­mass produced—­and before transportation systems ­ were in­ven­ted that could carry products over long distances. The foods of the classic Native American tribal groups often reflect the lands on which they lived. ­ Great Plains Indians differed in their way of life and language from ­ those from the Southeast or Pacific Coast. In similar ways, the earli- est Eu­ro­pean and African settlers also originally adapted to the lands that they settled. None of ­ these differences could have taken place without mas- sive climatic events from the end of the last ­ great Ice Age, beginning about 12,000–13,000 years ago onward. The modern American aquatic systems, such as freshwater seas called the ­ Great Lakes and the many river systems of the continent’s northern half, are the results of ­these events. Im­mense prairies and plains cover the cen- tral part of North Amer­ i ­ ca—­gifts left by the retreating ice. As the first Amer- icans advanced across the continent, ­ century by ­century, they found lands that ­were increasingly rich with millions of plant and animal species that had evolved in isolation from the other continents. Upon finding abundant
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