Maps for American Indian Studies

Maps for Iroquois / Haudenosausanee

Maps for Sioux

Maps for the Trail of Tears

Cherokee + other "Civilized Tribes"

Maps for Chippewa / Anaashinable

Maps for Bering Land Bridge

Between 20,000 & 10,000 years ago, as ice ages came and went, ancestors of Native American Indians
crossed a "land bridge" in a place that is now only water—the Bering Strait.

These Asian peoples continued migrating from North America to Central & South America and the Caribbean
to become the peoples now known as American Indians or Native Americans.

Location of Bering Strait / Bering Land Bridge

Note how close eastern Asia (Siberia) is to Northwest North America (Alaska)

The area of water separating the two continents is known as "the Bering Strait."

Asian Peoples' routes into Americas by Bering Land Bridge

American Indians' ancestors did not necessarily walk on ice to cross the Bering Land Bridge. The reason the land bridge emerged was not because of accumulated snowfall and ice, but because the Ice Ages drew much of earth's water into ice, lowering sea levels and exposing land (specifically, continental shelf) that was previoulsy only a few feet below sea level.

Global warming and climate change are causing opposite effects today, as melting ice at the North Pole and Antarctica raise sea levels.  

Literary and cultural significance of Asian-American Indian connection:

American Indians--or Indian-descended Americans--may resemble Asians: dark hair, dark eyes, epicanthic folds in eyes

Literature depicting American Indian soldiers fighting for the U.S. against Japanese (World War 2) or Vietnamese (Vietnam War) comment on irony of two Asian-descended peoples fighting, when both of them might oppose European-Americans.

Native festival in Anadyr, city in Russia's autonomous region of Chukotka, part of wider region known as Beringia.