Pre-historic Indigenous Canadians

• The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal culture included permanent settlements, agriculture, civic and ceremonial architecture, complex societal hierarchies and trading networks
• Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are some of the earliest known sites of human habitation in Canada and date from the last Ice Age.
• Projectile point tools, spears, pottery, bangles, chisels and scrapers mark these archaeological sites
• After the Ice Age, widespread migration, cultivation and later a dramatic rise in population all over the Americas occurred.
• American indigenous peoples domesticated, bred and cultivated a large array of plant species.
• These species now constitute 50 – 60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.
• Indigenous peoples hunted buffalo by herding migrating buffalo off cliffs.

First Tribes:

• The Na-Dene people occupied much of northwest and central North America starting around 8,000 BCE.
• They were the earliest ancestors of the Athabaskan-speaking peoples, including the Navajo and Apache.
• They had villages with large multi-family dwellings, used seasonally during the summer, from which they hunted, fished and gathered food supplies for the winter.
• The Wendat peoples (referred to in English as Huron) settled into Southern Ontario along the Eramosa River around 8,000–7,000 BCE
• They were concentrated between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay.
• Wendat hunted caribou to survive on the glacier-covered land.
• Nuu-chah-nulth of Vancouver Island were whalers, using advanced long spears.
• The Maritime Archaic were a culture of sea-mammal hunters in the subarctic Atlantic coast
• Their settlements included longhouses and boat-topped temporary or seasonal houses.
• They engaged in long-distance trade, using white chert as currency.
• White chert is a rock quarried from northern Labrador to Maine.
• The Red Paint People are indigenous to the New England and Atlantic Canada regions of North America and date from 3,000 BCE–1,000 BCE
• They were named after their burial ceremonies, which used large quantities of red ochre to cover bodies and grave goods

Red Paint People (http://www.neara.org/topics/RedPaintPeople.html)