Debert An Ancient Hunting Camp in Central Nova Scotia.
The work of archaeologists at this important site, the Debert site, firmly establishes man's earliest presence and way of life in the Maritimes. Caribou, probably hunted nearby, were butchered and processed for food and for the raw materials needed in the manufacture of tools and clothing. The illustration is an artist's reconstruction of life in this Palaeo-Indian encampment 10,600 years ago, based on archaeological findings. The environment in which these early people lived would have been similar to the tundra of northern Canada.
At Debert, archaeological remains were first discovered in the late 1940s, but their full significance and antiquity did not become clear for some years. Since then, archaeological investigations have revealed much more about the nature and considerable age of this prehistoric site. Several thousand stone artifacts associated with numerous camp fires - vestiges of an ancient hunting camp - were found. The people who stopped here would have been physically similar to you or me; their way of life was rugged, and they lived off the land as hunters and foragers. The remains of animal bones were not found at Debert, but from the location of the site at the head of a valley, it is thought to have been a hunting camp for the caribou that then ranged throughout the Maritimes.
Courtesy: National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada National Film Board of Canada
