How can anyone say Lewis and Clark “discovered” anything, since Native Americans living along their route already knew the places and creatures?
They gave Euro-Americans the first descriptions of many plants, animals, birds, rivers, and what the Rocky Mountains were like. Some animals are grizzly bears, bison (which had lived in the east long before), prairie dogs, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, magpies, Clark’s nutcracker and Lewis’s woodpecker (someone else named those two birds). Plants include bitterroot, camas, and wapato, all root vegetables that Indians used as easterners used potatoes. The captains also made careful notes about the Indian nations they met, describing how they lived and some of their beliefs, along with some of their language.
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