*Native Nations*

The author is Kathleen Duval, and the subtitle is A Millennium in North America.  This is an excellent book.  Here is one excerpt, strung together by me from three separate pages:

By 1400, the cities of Cahokia, Moundville, and the Huhugam were abandoned.  People continued to live nearby and, in many cases, continued to use the ruins as part of their ceremonies, but they no longer lived in the cities.  Trade, religion, and politics became democratized, more the domain of the people.  North America changed dramatically between 1200 and 1400, and the causes had nothing to do with Europeans.

Climate change, and The Little Ice Age, are the most likely culprits here:

The Little Ice Age was particularly hard on large, centralized agriculture-based cities around the world, including those of Cahokia, Moundville, and the Huhugam.  In times of hardship and famine, leaders struggled to maintain their positinos, especiallly if they had claimed special powers over natural forces that were out of their control: rain, rivers, and tempereature.  The urbanized settlments of North America were unable to deliver the healthand prosperity that people had enjoyed for generations.  Now people saw conditions getting worse in their lifetimes: less food, more poverty, a declining future for their children…

Gradually, across Native North America, people developed a deep distrust of centralization, hierarchy, and inequality.  The former residents of North America’s great cities reversed course, turning away from urbanization and political economic centralization to build new ways of living…

The first European explorers who crossed North America got a glimpse of this changing world.

I am excited to read the entire book.