late edit: DISCLAIMER: The pictured map is not actually a representation of the territories before colonisation. It’s a hypothetical map of what countries there might have been had the continent not been colonised, thus all the names and borders are fictional and have never existed.
For good actual maps, check out native-land.ca.
Unless I’m remembering middle school wrong, the map seems shy a few hundred tribes.
I also don’t recall there being lines
If you see the lines as approximations, I’m fine with it. There were no borders in the sense that nation states have them today of cause.
i mean a trivial solution to this is to just use colours with a soft gradient at the edges, you have a rough outline but it’s clear that there is no hard border
Sure. It’s a weird concept seeing these ancient people organized with modern standards in a map like this. I’m sure it would have seemed bizarre to them too.
Now show me a map of their power grid. Or wealth inequality. Etc
You want a GDP map of pre-contact America?
But seriously: don’t call them ancient. That compares them to the ancient people of the old world which they are not. They have a unique history. Call them pre-contact or pre-colonialism or pre-Columbus or something next time
Don’t call them people of the old world. That implies the world is only thousands of years old, which it is not.
Bla bla bla words
And many more tribes and communities were outright murdered by colonizers before they could even be documented. There are plenty of tribes that are just lost to time or we know nearly nothing about because they have no surviving members.
Indigenous peoples also don’t necessarily view tribes, nations, etc as rigid categories where you’re either one or the other, no exceptions. That in fact is the European view where you can only be part of one empire and where every empire seeks to capture as much land and resources for themselves as possible. You’ll notice that the native-land.ca map has tons of overlapping territories.