Archaeologists now generally agree that man first entered the New World via the "Beringia" land bridge over 25,000 years ago. During the late Pleistocene, these early arrivals adapted rapidly to the periglacial conditions first encountered in the New World. The search for food and raw material resources resulted in the southward movement of people along an ice-free corridor between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets into the heart of the continent. There is carbon-14 dated evidence of human presence throughout most regions of North and South America by 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Eastern Canada was no exception.
Most of the Maritimes was ice-free 10,000-11,000 years ago. At that time, the expanse of land, particularly along the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, was greater than now, because the ocean levels were lower. Today, the once exposed broad coastal areas lie under as much as 20 to 40 m of water. This physiographic difference was most dramatically illustrated in the land bridge between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, here referred to as Northumbria. Palaeo-botanical evidence at this early Holocene period points to a boreal forest or tundra-like landscape, with spruce as the dominant tree species.
The First Maritimers
The archaeological evidence supporting people in the Maritimes is well established. One of the best documented of the early man, or Palaeo-Indian, sites in eastern North America is found near Debert, Nova Scotia. Excavations at this site in the early 1960s point to the existence of an ancient caribou hunting camp; a series of thirteen radiocarbon dates place the occupation of the site at approximately 10,600 years ago. At the same time, a wide variety of stone implements related to hunting and food processing activities were uncovered; particularly characteristic were the numerous fluted projectiles and knives which are regarded as distinguishing features of these early Palaeo Indians in North America. In the southwestern United States, projectiles of this same type, known as Clovis, have been found in association with extinct animals, notably the mastodon. Although there have been no other equally well-documented sites as Debert in the Maritimes, temporally and culturally similar sites have been found to the south, in Maine and the New England states. Elsewhere in the Maritimes, the presence of early people across the region is documented through isolated finds made in each of the three Maritime provinces.
The three to five millennia that follow the initial period of occupation of the Maritimes is not well understood; however, the recent discovery, on the north coast of the Strait of Belle Isle, of an early Maritime culture dating from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, definitely confirms the presence of people during this period. Similar finds have come to light in Prince Edward Island and central Nova Scotia; these are in turn very closely allied to finds documented as far south as the Carolina Piedmont area. The latter suggests that a maritime and riverine-adapted people occupied the Atlantic coastal plain, and were perhaps directly ancestral to the first Palaeo-Indian hunters. In all probability small in numbers, they may in actual fact have comprised small groups which seasonally moved northward after particular resources, returning south for the winter period.
Continuing cultural ties between the interior part of the continent and the Maritimes are documented in isolated finds made along the north Gaspé coast and central region of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Of a distinctive type known as Plano, dating from 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, they are closely akin to Plano culture finds on the Great Plains. The Plano discoveries in the Maritimes are rare occurrences, suggesting that the influence of this culture was not great.
The climate from 10,000 years ago onwards underwent a marked improvement to warmer and dryer conditions. Pine gradually replaced a predominantly spruce forest, giving way to a mixed forest dominated by hemlock, beech and birch during the mid-Holocene Altithermal, 1,500 to 8,000 years ago.
Five to six thousand years ago, a major interior-based cultural tradition known as the Laurentian Archaic became established in the Northeast. Best known in New York, Vermont, southern Ontario and Quebec, this Laurentian influence in the Maritimes is regarded as minor in nature. Here instead developed a related tradition known as the Maritime Archaic, whose origins are not entirely clear, although it is probable that the ancestors of these people were the earlier mentioned populations that inhabited the Atlantic coastal plain. Discoveries of the Maritime Archaic culture first came to light during the past century, in New England. The elaborate burial sites of this culture which were unearthed became known as the Moorehead Burial Tradition of the Red Paint People, so named because of the red ochre found smeared over the human remains and the artifacts.
One of the most important sites belonging to the Maritime Archaic was found at Cow Point, New Brunswick. The age of the Cow Point site is dated by radiocarbon to about 3,800 years ago. Similar sites in the Northeast are from 3,400 to 5,000 years old. At Cow Point, archaeologists uncovered numerous burial interments associated with many functional and ornamental artifacts. Characteristic of both the Maritime and Laurentian Archaic cultures was a well-developed ground stone technology, which is manifest in a variety of beautifully made ground slate implements. Other implements include adzes, gouges and stone pendants. This was a culture possessing both marine and riverine-related technologies, whose traditions are known to have extended from Labrador to southern New England and reflect, thereby, the increasing mobility of people by means of water transportation.
Based on current knowledge of Maritime archaeology, a hiatus of about a thousand years exists following the Maritime Archaic culture. Sites about 2,300 years old occur next. By this time, a well-developed ceramic industry makes its appearance in the Maritimes. Ceramic technology itself originated in South or Central America where the first evidences are dated to 5 500 years ago. How the new technology was transmitted to the Maritime peoples, whether through the movement of populations or the transfer of information, is not as yet entirely clear. With ceramics, the latter was more probably the case.
Except for the addition of ceramics, the later prehistoric tool kit is not dramatically different from that of the Archaic period; however, the ground stone industry has noticeably declined. This may be due to a greater use being made of birchbark as a construction material, whereby the need for heavy woodworking implements has lessened.
The Adena Mystery
The record of the development of indigenous populations in the Maritimes contains one exciting departure. This derives from the Augustine site, a large burial mound situated on a branch of the Miramichi River of northeastern New Brunswick, and dating from the third and fourth century B.C. This site has produced evidence of an elaborate burial cult not a culture originating in the Maritimes, however, but one based in the Ohio River area of the midwestern United States. Known as the Adena, the effects of this culture were felt throughout the eastern part of the continent. Artifacts found at the Augustine site were distinguished from those associated with the local material culture. Raw materials from known quarries as far west as Illinois, Michigan and Ohio were used for making implements and were often of rare quality. Perhaps the most spectacular contents of the mound were the more than 1,500 rolled beads made from copper mined in the northern Lake Michigan or Lake Superior region. The formation of copper salts in the Augustine burial mound resulted in the preservation of numerous perishable items such as basketry, woven fabric, cord and hair. The Adena themselves disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. Most probably, those that remained over several generations were eventually absorbed into the local population.
Life near the Water
Archaeologically, the last two thousand years of prehistory in the Maritimes are the best known. This not only reflects an increase in population, but an increased preservation of sites. The Maritime regions that were most commonly exploited by prehistoric peoples were sheltered tidal estuaries and coastal saltwater lagoons, areas of abundant marine life, waterfowl and shellfish. Spawning species such as salmon and eel were especially sought after in these areas. One archaeological site, the Oxbow on the Miramichi system, contains several thousand years of documented evidence of repeated occupations based on seasonal salmon runs.
It is during this last two thousand years that most of the well-known shell or kitchen middens in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were deposited. Some hundred of them have been recorded in Passamaquoddy Bay in southern New Brunswick alone. Most shell midden sites date between 500 and 1,300 years ago. Sites of similar age are found at Nova Scotia's Merigomish Harbour, Mahone Bay and Bear River, and along Prince Edward Island's north shore. At certain times of the year, shellfish were of major importance in the prehistoric diet. Waterfowl, fish, marine mammals and terrestrial mammals were harvested all year round, though chiefly at peak seasons. The transhumant subsistence pattern of selecting seasonally productive resource areas probably became an established way of life in the Maritimes in very early times. However, it is generally only for the last 2,000 years or so that faunal remains have been preserved for the archaeological record with sufficient clarity to determine the seasonal use of such sites. Temporal and cultural changes occurring among late prehistoric assemblages are related chiefly to morphology and the decoration of ceramics. Stylistic and technological changes within the stone tool industry also offer clues to the identity of artifacts of this period.
The Historic Period Begins
Significant early historical events taking place in the Maritimes emphasize the importance of this area of the New World as a first point of contact by Europeans. Norse travellers to the west from Iceland and Greenland, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, reached the eastern Canadian Arctic and northern Newfoundland and possibly the Gulf of St. Lawrence, although these early visits do not seem to have left any imprint on the indigenous populations. At the time of first European contact, the native population of the Maritimes region comprised approximately 5,000 to 6,000 people belonging to the Algonquian language family, and subdivided into two distinct linguistic groups. The Micmac (Souriquois), numbering about 4,000, occupied all of Nova Scotia, Gaspé, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and the northeastern part of New Brunswick. The Maliseet- Passamaquoddy (Etchemins), numbering about 1,000 people, occupied western and southern New Brunswick.
The story of man's distant past in the Maritime region of Atlantic Canada is a complex and long history spanning more than five hundred generations of aboriginal habitation. Although archaeologists are now able to sketch in broad terms the various cultural groups and their technological traditions, many questions remain to be answered. The accelerating destruction of archaeological sites by human and natural agencies in particular coastal erosion underlines the urgent need for greater research if this earliest and longest period of our Canadian heritage is to be preserved.
