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Текст реферата Alaska

Ministry of Education of the Ukraine











Section: Area stadies

Topic:  Alaska


Done by Lena Kozachenok
201 gr.





Kyev 1998
FROM THE LAND CALLED BERINGIA
Origins of Alaska’s Native Groups
No one knows exactly when people first found the land that would be called Alaska.
Some anthropologists believe that people migrated from Asia to North America as long as 40,000 years ago. Others argue it was as recent as 15,000 years ago.
Whenever, the consensus is that they came from Asia by way of a northern land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska.
That land bridge, now recalled as Beringia, was the first gateway to Alaska. But these first visitors were hardly tourists intent on exploring new worlds. Rather they were simply pursuing their subsistence way of life as they followed great herds of grazing mammals across the grassy tundra and gentle steppes of Beringia.
They came sporadically through many millennia.. in waves of different ethnic backgrounds/generations of people and animals..hunters and hunted. As the Ice Age drew to an end and the seas claimed the land, these people moved to higher and drier places--the land that, as the continents drifted apart, would become Alaska.
Some groups settled in the Arctic. Others traversed the mountain passes to other parts of Alaska. While still others migrated through Alaska, continuing on to distant lands--perhaps as far as South America!
Those who made Alaska their permanent home make up the state’s four major anthropological group: Eskimos, Aleuts, Athabascans, and Northwest Coast Indians.
While all four groups shared certain basic similarities--all hunted, fished and gathered food--they developed distinctive cultures and sets of skills.
The Eskimos:
Flexible Residents of the Arctic
The Eskimos were primarily a coastal people, setting along the shores of the Arctic and Bering seas.
For millennia they lived a simple, subsistence life--much as they still do today--by harvesting the fish and mammals of the seas, the fruits and game of the land. Somehow they learned how to thrive despite the demanding conditions of the Arcitc.
Their sense of direction was keen, almost uncanny. Traveling in a straight line, sometimes through snowstorms and whiteouts, they found their way around the mostly featureless terrain by noting wind direction, the position of the stars, the shape and size of a snowdrift.
And they were resourceful. In a land where the summer sun stays at eye-level for weeks on end, never setting below the horizon, the Eskimos fashioned the first sun-visor--which also doubled as a snowmask to protect their eyes from the wind-driven snow!
The Athabascans:
Nomads of the Interior
Like the Eskimos, the Athabascans were skillful