what land mass was north america a part of about 300 million years ago
Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea
title: North America text: America; it formed between 1.5 and 1.0 billion years ago during the Proterozoic eon. The Canadian Shield is the largest exposure of this craton. From the Late Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic eras, North America was joined with the other modern-day continents as part of the supercontinent Pangaea, with Eurasia to its east. One of the results of the formation of Pangaea was the Appalachian Mountains, which formed some 480 million years ago, making it among the oldest mountain ranges in the world. When Pangaea began to rift around 200 million years ago, North America became part of Laurasia, before it title: North America text: separated from Eurasia as its own continent during the mid-Cretaceous period. The Rockies and other western mountain ranges began forming around this time from a period of mountain building called the Laramide orogeny, between 80 and 55 million years ago. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama that connected the continent to South America arguably occurred approximately 12 to 15 million years ago, and the Great Lakes (as well as many other northern freshwater lakes and rivers) were carved by receding glaciers about 10,000 years ago. North America is the source of much of what humanity knows about geologic time title: North America text: the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population, if nearby islands (most notably the Caribbean) are included. North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge approximately 40,000 to 17,000 years ago. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago (the beginning of the Archaic or Meso-Indian period). The title: North America text: of the last glacial period, in what is known as the late glacial maximum, occurring around 13,000 years ago. The oldest petroglyphs in North America date from 15,000 to 10,000 years before present, but some South American rock painting dates to 36,000 to 25,000 years ago (with the more recent dating being favored). Genetic research and anthropology indicate additional waves of migration from Asia via the Bering Strait during the Early-Middle Holocene. Before contact with Europeans, the natives of North America were divided into many different polities, from small bands of a few families to large empires. They lived in title: North America text: they domesticated one of the world's major staples, maize. The earliest verifiable instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact by any European culture with the landmasses that geologically constitute the modern North America mainland has been dated to the end of the 10th century CE – this site, situated at the northernmost extent of the island named Newfoundland, is known as L'Anse aux Meadows, where unmistakable evidence of Norse settlement was uncovered in the early 1960s. As a result of the development of agriculture in the south, many important cultural advances were made there. For example, the Maya civilization developed a writing