6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Graphic Organizer
THE LAND BRIDGE THEORY
Early people depended on Ice Age
animals for food, clothing and shelter.
After a climate change, early people
followed Ice Age animals over a Land
Bridge into North America.
Over thousands of years they continued
to migrate throughout the Americas.
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Big Idea Card
Big Ideas of the Lesson 6, Unit 3
• Archaeologists are historians who study the cultures of the past especially the
artifacts people leave behind.
• Archaeologists are trying to figure out who the first Americans were.
• Historians disagree about where the first Americans came from and how they
got to the Americas.
• One theory is that the first Americans came over a land bridge from Asia over
12,000 years ago. New evidence has been discovered that has challenged
this theory.
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Word Cards
24
archaeologist
25
artifacts
social scientists that study
ancient cultures through the
examination of artifacts, buildings, and
other remaining material evidence
material evidence from the
past that are left for us to study
Example: Archaeologists study artifacts such
as bones, tools, and old building sites.
Example: Old tools, dishes, and buttons are
examples of artifacts.
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26
theory
27
oral tradition
an accepted explanation supported by
evidence
history that is passed
down through generations by mouth
Example: People have different theories
about who the first Americans were.
Example: Some Native American oral
traditions say that Native Americans have
always been here in the Americas.
(SS060306)
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(SS060306)
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
PowerPoint Notes, page 1
1. What do you think the people in the photograph are doing? What do you think they are looking
for?
2. What kinds of new evidence might cause historians to question the land bridge theory or parts
of it?
3. How does evidence from the Topper site conflict with the Land Bridge Theory?
4. Draw a possible alternative migration route people may have taken into the Americas:
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
PowerPoint Notes, page 2
5. What kind of evidence could be used to ‘prove’ the Pacific Coastal theory of migration into the
Americas?
6.
Points of Disagreement among
Historians
The First Americans
Points of Agreement among Historians
7. Read the following origin story. Then, describe how it conflicts with the Land Bridge theory:
Hopi Origin Story
In the beginning, the Earth was covered with water. There were no animals or birds. Only spirits, gods, and
goddesses lived inside the dark Earth. One day, the goddesses of the East and West decided to create a
living creature. They made a bird from clay. The bird flew all around the Earth but could find no other life.
Seeing how lonesome the bird was, the goddesses made humans to keep it company.
At first, the people lived happily inside the Earth.
After a while, however, the rains stopped, and the crops failed. People began to argue with one another.
The worried chiefs decided the people needed to leave the Earth’s dark inside. One leader found a ladder
that led to a hole in the Earth’s crust. The chiefs guided their people up the ladder to the Earth’s surface.
Once there, the people did not know where they should settle, so each chief set out in a different direction
with his followers. They traveled east, west, north, and south until they found good land upon which they
could grow crops and build villages. This is how it all began for the Hopis.
How does this story conflict with the Land Bridge theory?
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Discovery Cards
Discovery Card #1
The Monte Verde Site
• An ancient site was discovered along a river in south central Chile
in 1993.
• The site contained remains of shelters, stone tools, and preserved
plants.
• Scientific tests showed the site was at least 12,500 years old and
perhaps older.
• This site is located 10,000 miles south of Alaska and the Bering
Strait.
Discovery Card #2
The Bluefish Caves Site
• An ancient site was discovered in Bluefish Caves in Canada’s
Yukon territory.
• The caves are in an area that people from Siberia could have
reached by crossing the land bridge.
• Stone and bone artifacts were found that indicate it was used as a
campsite by early Americans.
• These artifacts were dated as being around 24,000 years ago.
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Discovery Cards
Discovery Card #3
The Santa Rosa Island Site
• The bones of a woman were discovered 40 years ago on Santa
Rosa Island off the coast of California.
• New tests that were not available when the bones were first found
have dated the bones as being about 13,000 years old.
• Historians believe this woman belonged to a group that probably
did not hunt mammoths, but fished and gathered shellfish instead.
Discovery Card #4
The Meadowcroft Site
• An Ice Age campsite called the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter was
discovered in Pennsylvania.
• It included a number of objects that early people had left behind.
• Scientific tests showed the artifacts were 14,000 to 15,000 years
old. A few were dated at being more than 19,000 years old.
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Discovery Cards - Group Activity Sheet
Directions: Review the information on the discovery cards. Compare it to what you
have learned about the Land Bridge Theory. Then, complete the chart
below.
Site
How does the evidence found at this site challenge the
Land Bridge Theory?
Monte Verde
Bluefish Caves
Santa Rosa
Island
Meadowcroft
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Oakland Schools
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6th Grade Social Studies: World Geography and Global Issues
Unit 3: Population and Migration
SS60306
Lesson 6
Discovery Cards – Possible Answers
Directions: Review the information on the discovery cards. Compare it to what you
have learned about the Land Bridge Theory. Then, complete the chart
below.
Site
How does the evidence found at this site challenge the Land
Bridge Theory?
Monte Verde
If people crossed the land bridge 12,000 to 13,000 years ago,
how could they have traveled all the way to Chile by 12,500
years ago?
Bluefish Caves
If people crossed the land bridge about 13,000 years ago, how
could there be artifacts that are 24,000 years old in a cave in
Canada?
Santa Rosa
Island
How could people be living on an island off the coast of
California 13,000 years ago, when they were supposed to have
crossed the land bridge about that time?
Meadowcroft
How could people be living in Pennsylvania more than 2000
years before the earliest people were supposed to have crossed
the land bridge?
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