1st millennium BC in North American history

The 1st millennium BC in North American history provides a time line of events occurring within the present political boundaries of United States (including territories) from 1000 BC through 1 BC in the Gregorian calendar. Although this time line segment may include some European or other world events that profoundly influenced later American life, it focuses on developments within Native American (and Polynesian) communities. Because the indigenous peoples of these regions lacked a written language, we must glean events from the admittedly very incomplete archaeological record and place them in time through radiocarbon dating techniques.

Because of the inaccuracies inherent in radiocarbon dating and in interpreting other elements of the archaeological record, most dates in this time line 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 time line.

* 1000 BC: Athapaskan-speaking natives arrive in Alaska and western Canada, possibly from Siberia.

* 1000 BC: Pottery making widespread in the Eastern Woodlands.

* Adena culture takes form in the Ohio River valley, carving fine stone pipes placed with the dead in gigantic burial mounds.

* 500 to 1 BC: Basket Maker phase of early Anasazi culture begins in the American Southwest.

* 300 BC: Mogollon people, possibly descended from the Cochise, appear in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico.

* 200 BC: Hopewell culture begins flourishing in much of the East, with copper mining centered in the Great Lakes region.

* 1 BC: Some central and eastern prairie peoples learned to raise crops and shape pottery from the mound builders to their east.