2nd millennium BCE - 1st millennium BCE - 1st millennium 1st millennium in North American history The 1st millennium in North American history provides a timeline of events occurring within the North American continent from 1–1000 CE in the Gregorian calendar. This time period is part of the Post-archaic period , and 1–500 CE is known as the Middle Woodland Period, while 500–1000 CE is known as...

The 1st millennium BCE in North American history provides a timeline of events occurring within the North American continent from 3000 years ago through 1 BCE in the Gregorian calendar

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...

. This time period (from 1000–1 BCE) is known as the Post-archaic period (Post-archaic stage) and specifically the Early Woodland Period in the Eastern Woodlands. 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

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 communities. The archaeological records supplements indigenous recorded and oral history

Oral history

Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews...

.

Because of the 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.

List of events

• 1000 BCE–800 CE: The Norton tradition
  Norton tradition
  The Norton tradition is an archaeological culture that developed in the Western Arctic along the Alaskan shore of the Bering Strait around 1000 BCE and lasted through about 800 CE...
  
   developes in the Western Arctic along the Alaska
  Alaska
  Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
  
  n shore of the Bering Strait
  Bering Strait
  The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...
  
  

• 1000 BCE: Athapaskan-speaking natives arrive in Alaska and western Canada, possibly from Siberia
  Siberia
  Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
  
  .

• 1000 BCE: Pottery making widespread in the Eastern Woodlands
  Eastern Woodlands tribes
  The Eastern Woodlands was a cultural area of the indigenous people of North America. The Eastern Woodlands extended roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Great Plains, and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, which is now the eastern United States and Canada...
  
  .

• 1000 BCE–100 CE: Adena culture
  Adena culture
  The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the early Woodland Period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system...
  
   takes form in the Ohio River
  Ohio River
  The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
  
   valley, carving fine stone pipe
  Pipe (material)
  A pipe is a tubular section or hollow cylinder, usually but not necessarily of circular cross-section, used mainly to convey substances which can flow — liquids and gases , slurries, powders, masses of small solids...
  
  s placed with their dead in gigantic burial mounds.

• 500–1 BCE: Basketmaker
  Basketmaker (culture)
  The Basketmaker culture of the Ancient Pueblo People began about 1500 BC and continued until about AD 500 with the beginning of the Pueblo I Era...
  
   phase of early Ancestral Pueblo culture begins in the American Southwest.

• 300 BCE: Mogollon people, possibly descended from the Cochise tradition
  Cochise Tradition
  The Cochise Tradition refers to the southern archeological tradition of the four Southwestern Archaic Traditions, in the present day Southwestern United States....
  
  , appear in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.

• 200 BCE–500 CE: The Hopewell tradition begins flourishing in much of the East, with copper
  Copper
  Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
  
   mining centered in the Great Lakes region.

• 1 BCE: Some central and eastern prairie peoples learned to raise crops and shape pottery
  Pottery
  Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
  
   from the mound builders to their east.