Image: Woodworking tools, Archaic Period, c. 8000–1000 BCE. Items 1 to 5: Adze. A & B: Axe.  C: Grooved Mallet. All these tools were found in the Bayfield River or on land nearby.

*Archaeologists often identify time periods in the distant past as BP or “Before Present.” This avoids the Christian-based division of time into years before and after the birth of Christ, BC or AD, or the more modern Before the Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE). We use BP when discussing archaeological periods and BCE/CE when reviewing more recent events.

Paleoindian and Archaic Periods

“Paleoindian” describes a variety of cultures, all of whom used stone tools and lived in what is now Canada from the end of the last Ice Age, about 12000 BP to about 8000 BP. Relatively few archeological sites have been discovered so far, but there are at least four locations in southwestern Ontario that have revealed Indigenous activity about 9,000 years ago (Sherratt, 2022). 

A. Archaic Nettling Point 10,000 years old (found near Thamesville, Ont., in a field off the Fysh Line Road). B. Side Notch Point. C. Spearhead or Projectile made from Onondaga Chert. D. Woodland Meadowood Point 2,600 years old. E. Corner Notch Point sinew was wrapped over the notches and around the arrow shaft. F. Point Preform: Hunters carried “preform points” on hunting trips instead of large stones. If a spearhead was lost, they would then have a preform almost ready to replace it. G. Point with a broken tip made of chert. H. Scraping Shard knapped or flaked off a large stone and used for small scraping jobs.

Items B C D E F G were found on the Bayfield River flats and in fields in the area. Items H and J were found on the Bayfield beach.

A sub-group of people of this period were called the Clovis or Llano people, once considered to be the first to migrate from Asia into North America. This culture was distinguished by a certain type of stone tool “produced by removing long flakes from the flat surfaces along the complete length of the implement. The accompanying complex of stone tools included a variety of blades, burins, scrapers, knives and drills” (Canadian Encyclopedia, “Clovis”).  These blades were used in spears to hunt large and small animals such as mammoths, mastodons, caribou, and hare. The Clovis culture can be found from Arizona to Nova Scotia, and evidence of these types of tools has been found in Ontario. A spear point dated to 13000 BP was recently discovered on a beach in Sarnia (see image below).

This fluted point, made about 13,000 years ago, was found on the beach at Canatara Park, Sarnia. Image courtesy of the Museum of Ontario Archeology. Sarnia Journal, 1 May 2018.

The Archaic Period overlaps the Paleoindian and is dated from about 10000 to 3000 BP. Archaeologists begin to distinguish more specific cultures during this period, identifying them by region, such as Laurentian culture in southwestern Ontario and the St. Lawrence or Shield culture in northern Ontario, Manitoba, and northwest Quebec.

The Woodland Period

In the middle and late “Woodland Period,” experts begin to define Indigenous cultures by names that we might recognize today. Woodland culture describes cultural groups mainly in Ontario and Quebec from 3000 to 500 BP, or 800 BCE to about 1700 CE. This is the time period we will focus on the most as we investigate the Indigenous cultures of eastern Lake Huron in the centuries leading up to European contact in the early 1600s, through to the early 19th century (1820s). Contact didn’t happen in one day. It occurred over the course of decades and even centuries on a broader multiregional or “continental” level. Many different labels are attached to the groups who lived here, but Late Woodland Indigenous cultures of the Lake Huron area can be roughly divided by two major language types: Algonquian and Iroquoian. Both language groups exist today, and the descendants of Late Woodland ancestors still govern themselves in recognized First Nation governments in Canada and the United States.  

Iroquoian

The Iroquoian-speaking peoples included the Huron-Wendat, Tionontati (Petun), and Neutrals (Attiwandaron) in southwestern Ontario. These groups were culturally related to the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, based largely in present-day New York State. 

Algonquian

The Algonquian-speaking peoples are a large linguistic group stretching from the Atlantic provinces to Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In southwestern Ontario, they included the Anishinaabeg, which is itself an umbrella term for the Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe groups. Some experts also include the Mississauga, Saulteax, Nippissing, and Algonquin nations as Anishinaabeg and Anishinaabemowin-speaking peoples.

Are you confused yet? That’s certainly to be expected. The many different names of Indigenous groups reflect the complicated histories that come from Indigenous oral tradition and self-identification, the writings of early explorers and missionaries, and sometimes conflicting histories written by contemporary scholars. Some names indicate how Indigenous peoples refer to themselves or one another; some are continuations of French or English labels. Over centuries, Indigenous groups subdivided, merged, and mixed. What is certain is that the land we call Huron County and southwestern Ontario generally has supported and continues to be a homeland to First Nations peoples whose history is still evolving, namely the Anishinaabeg (which includes all “three fires” as well as the Shawnee descendants who joined us in and around the War of 1812 era), the Six Nations Iroquois, and the Delaware-Lenni Lenape Nations, who joined Anishinaabeg and Iroquois peoples following the onset of the early American colonial period (circa 1770s-1820). 

Map 1 shows the variety of Indigenous language groups across North America prior to European contact (about 1600). The large cross-hatched area labelled “Algic” is the region of Algonquian-speaking peoples. It covers Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and most of Lake Huron, continuing up to Hudson Bay and stretching west into Manitoba and east to Newfoundland. The pink area just to the south and east of that is Iroquoian, covering Lakes Erie and Ontario and up along the St. Lawrence River. You can see that present-day Huron County is near the border of these two areas on the map. It’s not surprising that over the years these borders became less precise as territories shifted and Indigenous groups merged and moved.

Map 1. Pre-contact distribution of Indigenous language families. Belshaw, 105.

Sources

“Anishinaabe.” Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anishinaabe

Belshaw, John Douglas. Canadian History: Pre-Confederation. 2nd ed. BCCampus. Victoria, BC. https://collection.bccampus.ca/textbooks/canadian-history-pre-confederation-2nd-edition-bccampus-68/

“Clovis.” Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/clovis

“First Peoples, 9000 BCE to 1600 C.” https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/history-art-culture/museums/virtual-exhibits/history-of-toronto/first-peoples-9000-bce-to-1600-ce/

King, Thomas. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.   Anchor Canada, 2012.

Sherratt, Jim. “The Land Between: An Overview of the Indigenous Archaeology of Huron County.”  KEWA: Newsletter of the London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society.  Sept-Oct 2021. 

“Spear point found on Canatara Beach made by Ontario’s earliest human inhabitants.” The Sarnia Journal. Online. 1 May 2018. https://thesarniajournal.ca/spear-point-found-on-canatara-beach-made-by-ontarios-earliest-human-inhabitants/

Stastna, Kazi. “Clovis People Not 1st to Arrive in North America.” CBC News online. 13 July 2012. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/clovis-people-not-1st-to-arrive-in-north-america-1.1235030

“Woodland Culture.” Canadian Encylopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/woodland-culture