The History of north America

Fun fact! My dad's side of the family are distant descendants of the Cherokee people, but we are going to be focusing on the Comanche people.  The Comanche tribe mostly lived in the area where Denton is today!  They traded with the neighboring tribes, like the Choctaw and Natchez people.  They probably traded stuff like bison horns, but probably other stuff like corn or tools.

While people in Mesopotamia were starting the first civilizations, in North America/Denton, from Proto-farmers in modern-day Arizona and New Mexico to Arctic hunters in modern-day Alaska and Plains hunters in the Great Plains, human life was thriving in places outside the intersection of Africa, Asia, and Europe. This picture shows 2 Native Americans

This scene depicts some of the first North American/Denton settlers from the old world, who traveled here using the Bering Land Bridge 13,000 years ago.  Also, the Bering Land Bridge isn't there anymore.  It is now currently under 130-160ft of water. Everyone is asking the question "what came first, the chicken or the egg?" (by the way, the answer is actually Tyrannosaurus Rex), but the question people should really be asking is "who came first, the wolf or the human?"  Actually, studies show that the first canines evolved about 40 million years ago, before humans, but humans have actually been around longer than wolves and dogs.

Here is another one of your favorite prehistoric creatures, the Woolly Mammoth, one of the most popular prehistoric mammals in history!  Woolly Mammoths were a group of elephants with giant, curving tusks adapted for grazing, and as you can see, the Woolly Mammoth did not have large ears like modern day elephants, because they were adapted for living in cold environments. Out of Africa and into America, the Woolly Mammoths traveled on a large land bridge that connected America, Asia, and Europe. Coelodonta, also known as the Woolly Rhino, was the inspiration for the Mudhorn in the Star Wars Mandalorian Series and also one of the mammals that Woolly Mammoths met on their large migration from Africa to America. Bison Latifrons still has descendants living today, the American Bison, but was sadly over-hunted by humans

This toothed whale Ankylorhiza lived in the late Paleogene period and the early Neogene period.  The reason why Ankylorhiza is hunting a bird is because in the Neogene, many modern types of birds began to evolve. This is a fossilized skull of the shark-toothed whale Squalodont.  

Hey, look!  There is a Cimolestes!  One of Earth's first mammals.  It lived long, long ago.  Like mammals today, they had fur.  Most gave birth to live babies and fed them milk.  The first mammals were small, like Cimolestes, and lived amongst giant dinosaurs, which sounds like it would be easy, because who would imagine a Tyrannosaur going after a tiny little rat mammal instead of a giant, juicy triceratops? While Cimolestes was first found in fossilized remains from the late Cretaceous, many scientists believe it survived into the Paleocene, beyond the extinction of the last dinosaurs. Also, here is Alphadon, another early mammal that evolved after the dinosaurs went extinct.

Here comes your favorite dinosaur, Tyrannosaurus Rex, also known as T-Rex and Tyrannosaurus.  Your friend Rexy here isn't quite the largest dinosaur, but definitely the fiercest with giant banana-sized teeth and her incredibly strong bite.  And another thing that Rexy here is known for is her "weak," tiny arms, but actually Rexy's arms were extremely strong and could probably help her get up if she fell down. Also, some other of your favorite dinosaurs, Triceratops the Ceratopsian and your favorite Hadrosuar, Edmontosaurus, were discovered in fossilized dung of Rexy. Actually, Triceratops probably isn't even a real dinosaur.  Well, we don't actually know, but some scientists think that Triceratops is a teenage version of the dinosaur Torosaurus, because Triceratops and Torosaurus evolved at the same time, went extinct at the same time, and lived in the same places.  Also, there have been no juvenile Torosaurus fossils found.  Even though all of the evidence ad...

A lot of late Jurassic dinosaurs that lived in North America/Denton also lived in South Africa, like this giant long-necked Barosaurus and large carnivore Allosaurus. there was no grass in the Jurassic. And other American dinosaurs from the late Jurassic, like this Ceratosauridae, the Ceratosaurus, also lived in Tanzania, Africa.

That Coelophysis we saw earlier might have even survived the Triassic extinction, because scientists found fossils of Coelophysis from the early Jurassic!  Unfortunately, we won't see dinosaurs like Allosaurus and Megalosaurus until the middle Jurassic.  Large predators didn't come until the middle Jurassic, except for Coelophysis and Dilophosaurus, as you can see here. Also, here is the prosauropod Massospondylus, which lived in North America/Denton and in South Africa.

I don't really think that the Triassic should be considered part of the Mesozoic Era, because dinosaurs, like this coelophysis, didn't truly rule the Triassic until the late Triassic.  

The Permian was known for many things, but one very important things were synapsids.  Synapsids were actually our early, early ancestors, like these Dimetrodons!

On the bottom-left is the Ordovician.  The warm waters of the Ordovician covered much of the earth, submerging the continent that would later form North America.  The oceans teemed with trilobites: large pillpug-shaped creatures that scuttled across the seabed. On the bottom-right is the Silurian period.  During this period, coral reefs flourished, providing habitats for many of the first fish. On the upper-right side shows the Devonian, also known as the Age of Fish, and I can see a giant Dunkleosteous fish!  It uses those big plates in its mouth as teeth.  Dunkleosteous doesn't have real teeth. On the upper-left is the Carboniferous period, and right over there next to that Sigillaria tree, there is a giant amphibian.

Now we have traveled 4 billion years, and oh!  Look, some of the first living things on Earth! Hey look, there's a helicoplacus!  They are the earliest studied fossil echinoderm.

4.5 billion years ago, a protoplanet named Theia collided with Earth as it was being formed.  The remains if Theia became our moon.  Doesn’t it look cool?