section_path: History by region/Americas/North America/Northern areas
section_name: Northern areas
paragraph_text: Northern areas
  
  In North America, many hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies thrived in the diverse region. Native American tribes varied greatly in characteristics; some, including the Mound Builders and the Oasisamerican cultures were complex chiefdoms. Other nations which inhabited the states of the modern northern United States and Canada had less complexity and did not follow technological changes as quickly. Approximately around the year 500 during the Woodland period, Native Americans began to transition to bows and arrows from spears for hunting and warfare. Around the year 1,000 corn was widely adopted as a staple crop in the Eastern United States. Corn would continue to be the staple crop of natives in the Eastern United States and Canada until the Columbian exchange.
  
  In the Eastern United States, rivers were the medium of trade and communication. Cahokia located in the modern U.S. state of Illinois was among the most significant city within the Mississippian culture. Focused around Monks Mound archaeology indicates the population increased exponentially after 1000 because it manufactured important tools for agriculture and hosted cultural attractions. Around 1350 Cahokia was abandoned, environmental factors have been proposed for the city's decline.
  
  At the same time Ancestral Puebloans constructed clusters of buildings in the Chaco Canyon site located in the State of New Mexico. Individual houses may have been occupied by more than 600 residents at any one time. Chaco Canyon was the only pre-Columbian site in the United States to build paved roads. Pottery indicates a society that was becoming more complex, turkeys for the first time in the continental United States were also domesticated. Around 1150 the structures of Chaco Canyon were abandoned, likely as a result of severe drought. There were also other Pueblo complexes in the Southwestern United States like the Cliff Palace located in Mesa Verde National Park. After reaching climaxes native complex societies in the United States declined and did not entirely recover before the arrival of European explorers.