3rd millennium BC in North American history

4th millennium BC - 3rd millennium BC - 2nd millennium BC

The 3rd millennium BC in North American history provides a timeline of events occurring within the North American continent from 3000 BC through 2001 BC in the Gregorian calendar. This time period (from 3000 BC to 2001 BC) is known as the Late Archaic. Although this timeline segment may include some European or other world events that profoundly influenced later American life, it focuses on developments within Native American communities. The archaeological records supplements indigenous recorded and oral history.

Because of potential inaccuracies inherent in radiocarbon dating and in interpreting other elements of the archaeological record, most dates in this timeline represent approximations that may vary a century or more from source to source. The assumptions implicit in archaeological dating methods also may yield a general bias in the dating in this timeline.

• 3000 BC: Cultivation of the sunflower and marsh elder begins in the American South; northeastern natives cultivate amaranth and marsh elder. After harvesting these plants, the people grind their seeds into flour.
• 3000 BC: The Cochise tradition of the American Southwest begin cultivating a primitive form of maize imported from Mesoamerica; common beans and squash follow later.
• 3000 BC: Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest begin to exploit shellfish resources.
• 3000 BC: Fishing in the Northwestern Plateau increases.
• 3000 BC: Natives speaking the Algonquian languages arrive in eastern Canada from the south.
• Shell ornaments and copper items at Indian Knoll, Kentucky evidence an extensive trade system over several millennia.
• 2500–800 BC: The Arctic Small Tool tradition develops on the Alaska Peninsula, near Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait in Alaska.
• 2500–1800 BC: Aleutian tradition emerges in Alaska.
• 2500: Independence I people enter Greenland from Canada. The last archaeological evidence of Independence I is from 1730 BC.^[1]
• 2400 BC: Saqqaq people enter Greenland from Siberia and live there until 400 BC.^[1]
• 2500 BC: The Cochise tradition become skilled farmers of the American Southwest.
• 2100 BC: Maize cultivation begins in Aridoamerica.^[2]

See also

• Archaic period in the Americas
• List of archaeological periods (North America)

Notes

1. "Migration to Greenland." About Greenland. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
2. Sara A. Herr, "The Latest Research on the Earliest Farmers," Archaeology Southwest 23, n. 1 (Winter 2009): 1