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Natives and early settlers
Natives and early settlers
Natives and early settlers
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The First Inhabitants of the Great Lakes Region in North America
As archeological discoveries of bone fragments and fossils continue to support the existence of homo-sapiens
in North America prior to the arrival of Indo-European explorers in the 15th century, this paper will attempt to
explain chronologically, which Native American inhabitants lived or migrated throughout what is known today as the
Great Lakes Region. This region includes lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Ontario, & Erie as well as surrounding
U.S. state territories including Michigan, a significant portion of Wisconsin, small portions of Minnesota & Indiana, a
small part of Illinois and the Canadian providence of Ontario toward the north. In terms of chronological dates, this
paper will analyze the quaternary period, specifically the “Holocene epoch from 8000 B.C. to Present; the last 10,000
years ” (Quimby 2), since this epoch involved the fundamental evolution of mankind to the present. It is important to
realize that the late Pleistocene epoch had a dramatic affect on the migration patterns of homo-sapiens reaching “the
Americas by 14,000 ago” (O’Brien 12), after large portions of North America encountered the last ice age, which
through glaciation and glacial retreat affected the date of arrival and presence of indigenous people throughout the
Great Lakes Region.
Shortly following the glacial retreat of the upper Great Lakes region around 11,000 B.C., the flora and fauna
in the region began to develop prior to and upon the arrival of the “Paleo-Indian tribe, circa 7000 B.C. to 4500 B.C.”
(Quimby 6). Between this time period, in 6000 B.C., the basins of the upper Great Lakes became entirely ice free
and moraines and depressions began forming t...
... middle of paper ...
...indigenous inhabitants mentioned throughout this report. This led me
to conclude that Indian life in North America was without doubt, altered if not completely destroyed of its dignity,
prosperity and self-worth ever since the arrival of the white man to this very day.
WORKS CITED
Kubiak, William J. Great Lakes Indians. Grand Rapids : Baker Book House
Company, 1970.
O’Brien, Patrick K. Philips Atlas of World History. London : George Philip Limited, 1999.
Quimby, George I., Spaulding, Albert C. "The Old Copper Culture and the
Keweenaw Waterway" Fieldiana : Anthropology 36 no. 8 (1963): 189-201.
Quimby, George I. Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1960.
Ritzenthaler E. Robert, Quimby, George I. "The Red Ocher of the Upper Great Lakes
and Adjacent Areas." Fieldiana : Anthropology 36 no.11 (1963): 243-275.
The original Huron settlement was located between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe in the southern part of Ontario (1). The tribe was discovered by the French in the year 1610 and the French described the group as the most prosperous native group they had discovered along the St. Lawrence River (1). As it turns out, The Huron actually called themselves Wendat, which means “Dwellers on a Peninsula” (12). The word Huron was given to the group by the French and because the word meant a boar or a hillbilly, the group was offended and did not adopt the name (12). Eventually the Huron were forced to sell their land by the US government in the 1800s. Today, the Huron have reserves in Kansas and Oklahoma as well as Quebec, Canada (Internet Research). Numerous connections could be made between the Huron and the topics we have talked about throughout the semester. The five connections that were talked about most in the book include: horticulture, religion and rituals, kinship and marriage practices, gender role ideol...
The pre-contact period is characterized by the coalescence of communities in both the Ontario and League areas of the Iroquois. The expansion of fortified villages and increasing size of longhouses is evident in sites such as the Draper Village. Though the structures grew in length- some reaching over 100 meters- the village area per person decreased, causing a higher population density within the village. The longhouses at the Draper site also show an increase in the amount of organized space and regularity of the spatial dynamics (Birch
The Mixedwood Plains ecozone is composed of waterfalls, rivers, plains, and wetlands. The last continental ice sheet covering the ecozone melted 11 000 years ago, leaving thick clay deposits. Underneath, the ecozone is sedimentary rock, while up above, it is mostly plains and rolling hills with some notable features being Manitoulin Island, the Great Lakes, and the Niagara Escarpment. More than 6000 drumlins span the ecozone, as do bodies of freshwater. Approximately 42% of the total surface is made up of lakes and rivers, including four Great Lakes – Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario – as well as the St. Lawrence River.
Quinn, David B. North America From Earliest Discovery to First Settlements. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1977.
...Clague, John J., Luckman, Brian H., Wiles, Gregory C. “Tree-Ring Dating of the Nineteenth-Century Advance of Brady Glacier and the Evolution of Two Ice- Marginal Lakes, Alaska.” The Holocene 21.4 (2001): 641-649. Sage Journals. Web. 9. Feb. 2014.
The lives of Native Americans from as early as 800 B.C.E. in present-day Mexico and Central America depended heavily on the knowledge and technology passed down from previous tribes. The impact this has had on developing Mesoamerican societies can be seen in records of their history. Having the way of life of a tribe documented can help prove the significance of these accomplishments.
In recent years, the Homo Neanderthalensis were viewed as “subhuman brutes”, but are now seen as a different species from our own (Balter 2001). The Neanderthals were a branch of the Homo genus that evolved in Eurasia at least 200,000 years ago (Fagan 2010). The first Neand...
Lake Erie is one of the first of the Great Lakes formed by the glaciers receding between 1 and 12,600 million years ago. Lake Erie borders New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Canadian Province, Ontario. Lake Erie is about 241 miles long, about 57 miles wide and has about 871 miles of shoreline. The length of Ohio's shoreline is about 312 miles. It has three basins: the western which averages about 24 feet, central which averages 60 feet and eastern basin. The eastern basin averages about 80 feet with a maximum depth are 210 feet which make it the deepest. The water surface area is about 9,910 square miles and the volume is about 116 cubic miles. The Detroit River water flow makes up
About 15,000 years ago, a strip of land called the Central Beringia once connected Siberia and Alaska. Due to global warming and the warming of the Earth, the bridge shrunk around the edges causing the sea to rise and the waters to rise. The Siberia people who lived near the bridge began to move to North America due to the bridge being shrunk. People believe that they were colonized by animals and hunting. This is because as the waters rose, they had to move along with it and they moved to the places where they knew that they could find food easily. The first settlement seemed to be sporadic with an untidy process, or even no p...
The Pleistocene epoch was a time period of almost 2 million years of repeating glaciation around the globe. This epoch was known for its megafauna that roamed the Earth during the last great ice age. Although this was a time of mass extinction for species that could not adapt to the climate changes, many mammals and vertebrates that can be identified today were found during this time (Zimmermann, 2013). The Pleistocene epoch is an important foundation for understanding life that exists today, including carnivores, herbivores as well as the evolution of humans.
The state of Michigan joined the union on January 26, 1837 and was the 26th state to join. Unlike any other state in the US, Michigan consists of two different Peninsulas, the upper and lower. These two peninsulas are separated by what is known as the straits of mackinaw which is what connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron together. This is how Michigan received its name. Michigan is derived from the word Ojibwa word Mishigamaa which translates to “Large Lake”. Michigan is known for its immense amount of lakes and water ways. It is said that where ever you are in Michigan, you are never more than 90 miles from one of the great lakes. Michigan was originally inhabited by Indians before the French took over the land and then the British one it from the French.
It took 12,000 years for people to cross the Bering Strait, an 85 km long area from Serbia to Alaska (Hall D, 1997). The reason it took people 12,000 years to cross the Bering strait was mostly weather conditioned. The cold and unsurvivable conditions made it impossible for people to attempt crossing into Alaska. After crossing into Alaska though, it only took people 2000 years to travel down the west coast from Alaska to Chile. Other hypotheses may suggest that people came to North America to South America, however there is no particularly useful proof for this. An already discussed proof shows that people may have come across the Atlantic Ocean to the east coast and even if this did happen, there is no proof of survival there. The proof of migration from the Bering strait lies in the Haplogroups, skeletal proof, tools and disturbances in the environment of North America pre-native people. The Arlington Man, Prince of Wales Island Man and Kennewick Man are all examples of people who have been found while migrating across America. These examples, however are not the only examples of people who have been found during excavations. There have also been situations where human remains have not been found but instead, remains of animals and tampering with the natural balance of the environment are visible. An example of this would be the Cross Creek, which shows the use of marine life for survival, something that is also backed up by many other findings across the
The cultural innovations analyses presented here illustrate the presence of cumulative cultural evolution in the upper Paleolithic and portray how a steady rate of change continuous with that seen in later human history. This should serve to encourage interests in the internal process of evolution that may tend to produce a smooth curve, including the possible the autocatalytic effects of the increasing technological
The First "Europeans" reached the Western Hemisphere in the late 15th century. Upon arrival they encountered a rich and diverse culture that had already been inhabited for thousands of years. The Europeans were completely unprepared for the people they stumbled upon. They couldn't understand cultures that were so different and exotic from their own. The discovery of the existence of anything beyond their previous experience could threaten the stability of their entire religious and social structure. Seeing the Indians as savages they made them over in their own image as quickly as possible. In doing so they overlooked the roots that attached the Indians to their fascinating past. The importance of this past is often overlooked. Most text or history books begin the story of the Americas from the first European settlement and disregard the 30,000 years of separate, preceding cultural development (Deetz 7).
The foundation of the Great Lakes began around three billion years ago, which is known as the Precambrian Era. The Precambrian Era contains numerous ecological events, which consists of volcanic activity to erosion to the mountains and hills seen today being formed. Then during the Pleistocene Epoch or known as the “Ice Age, occurred between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. At least four times during the Pleistocene Epoch, large masses of ice advanced and retreated over the surface of what is now North America. As the glaciers advanced, giant sheets of ice flowed across the land, leveling mountains and carving out massive ...