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Episode 64 Native Americans 4. After the Ice Age.

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Around 8,000 BC, a revolution began to race through prehistoric America.

As the continental ice sheet began to retreat and the climate warmed, the situation which had lasted in North America for the past few thousand years could no longer continue.

About 4,000 bands of two dozen people were spread across the North American continent.

They were bands of hunter-gatherers, while hunting was the most glamorous of these.

They were certainly gatherers who hunted, not hunters who gathered.

But their world was changing.

The large game animals were disappearing, but probably not due to overhunting.

Many species went extinct, and not just the game animals, which seems to indicate climactic factors.

While the humans certainly killed a portion of the animals on the continent, the tundra that had been their

home simply disappeared to be replaced by the vegetational zones, which had previously been confined to the lower reaches of the continent.

As the tundra moved northwards, the high altitude sunlight was less able to support grazing animals.

As the ecology of the North American continent changed, humans had to adapt,

and in doing so, we have to refer to the Paleo-Indians as something else.

The large herds moved north.

Creatures, such as Caribou, could now only be reached by those living in the far north.

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