4th millennium BC in North American history

The 4th millennium BC in North American history provides a time line of events occurring within the present political boundaries of United States (including territories) from 4000 BC through 3001 BC in the Gregorian calendar. Although this time line segment may include some European or other world events that profoundly influenced later American life, it focuses on developments within Native American (and Polynesian) communities. Because the indigenous peoples of these regions lacked a written language, we must glean events from the admittedly very incomplete archaeological record and place them in time through radiocarbon dating techniques.

Because of the inaccuracies inherent in radiocarbon dating and in interpreting other elements of the archaeological record, most dates in this time line represent approximations that may vary a century or more from source to source. The assumptions implicit in archaeological dating methods also may yield a general bias in the dating in this time line.

* 4000 BC: Inhabitants of Mesoamerica cultivate maize (corn) while Peruvian natives cultivate beans and squash.

* 3500 BC: Mesopotamians invent the wheel, absent in the New World until Europeans arrive.

* 3500 BC: The largest, oldest drive site at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta, Canada.

* Shell ornaments and copper items at Indian Knoll, Kentucky evidence an extensive trade system over several millennia.

* 3001 BC: Cultivation of the sunflower and marsh elder begins in the American South; northeastern natives cultivate amaranth and marsh elder. After harvesting these plants, the people grind their seeds into flour.

* 3001 BC: The Cochise people of the American Southwest begin cultivating a primitive form of maize imported from Mesoamerica; common beans and squash follow later.

* 3001 BC: Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest begin to exploit shellfish resources.

* 3001 BC: Fishing in the Northwestern Plateau increases.

* 3001 BC: Natives speaking the Algonquian languages arrive in eastern Canada from the south.