North America
| ~ 8000 BC | Northeast occupied Northeast region of US occupied by humans. |
| 7000 - 5000 BC | Mammalian Extinctions Mastodons, woolly mammoths, and other great mammals of North America became extinct. |
| ~ 7000 BC | Maize Teosinte cultivated in Tehuacan, developed into maize. |
| 3500 - 1500 BC | Horticulture in Southwest Beginnings of horticulture in US Southwest. |
| ~ 1000 BC | Poverty Point Poverty Point mounds built in Louisiana. |
| ~ 500 BC | Adena-Hopewell Adena-Hopewell mounds built in Ohio Valley. |
| Hohokam | |
| 300 BC - 1350 AD | Mogollon By around 300 BC, the nomadic Cochise had settled down to farming and village life, were building permanent habitations and were making crude pottery; the Cochise had thus transitioned and thus the Mogollon culture was established. |
| 100 BC - 17thcent | Anasazi |
There has been much research, writing, and speculation on the Mesoamerican roots of prehistoric southwestern culture, and while scholars all agree on the importance of the northern spread of influences from the more ancient civilizations of southern Mexico, they have not as yet traced in detail what development came from what region, nor at what time. Although there are many gap of knowledge and differences of opinion, there is little disagreement among scientists that the Hohokam, the principal prehistoric inhabitants of southern Arizona, played an active role in what has been called "the Mexican connection." Noble 1981, p 15
| 500 | Identifiable remains of Hohokam, Anasazi and Mongollon peoples in US Southwest. |
| 600 | Beginnings of Cahokia, in Illinois. |
| ~ 800 | Mesoamericans in the Mississippi Valley, and introduction to Mississippi Valley of improved variety of maize. |
| Hopi condominiums. | |
| c 900 CE | Monks Mound built in Illinois. A pyramid consisting of soil with a mass of stone deep within. |
| AD 1100 - 1500 | Casas Grandes |
| 1000 - 1300 | Anasazi communities flourished. |
| 1200 | Probable maximum population of North American Indians. |
| 1300 | Most recent migration of Delawares from west to east. Mississippians withdraw southward. Onondaga culture showed marked change. Apacheans began to separate into tribes. |
| 1390 | Iroquois Founded Traditional origin date of the League of the Haudenosaunce (Iroquois) |
| 1400 | Athapascans migrated to US Southwest. |
By the middle of the sixteenth century, the Spanish and Portuguese -- no longer faced with effective resistance from the native populations -- had established colonial control over all of South America and much of North America. In the parts of North America that would eventually become the United States, the European presence was for a time less powerful. The Spanish established an important northern outpost in what is now New Mexico, a society in which Europeans and Indians lived together intimately, if unequally. On the whole, however, the North American Indians remained largely undisturbed by Europeans until English, French and Dutch migrations began in the early seventeenth century. Brinkley, p 26