The 1st millennium in North American history provides a time
line of events occurring within the present political boundaries
of United States (including territories) from AD 1 through 1000
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.