The Native History of the Regional Municipality of Halton and the Town of Oakville: Part I

There are 443 native archaeological sites registered within the boundaries of the Regional Municipality of Halton. The greater proportion of these sites are situated below the Niagara Escarpment in the drainage basins of Sixteen Mile and Bronte Creeks. Of the 443 sites, 250 provide too little evidence to place them within the general framework of Ontario native history; all we know is that they are prehistoric native. The other 193 represent every major stage in Ontario's native history from the first peoples 11,000 years ago to the historic First Nations who inhabited the area at the arrival of Europeans about 300 years ago. Some of these sites are multi-component, meaning that they were occupied by more than one group of people at different times. Thus, there are 193 sites which represent 229 components in Halton. In the discussion that follows, numbers of components will be noted, not simply numbers of sites.

Ontario's native prehistory is divided into three major periods: Paleo-Indian, Archaic and Woodland. The following discussion separates the native tradition into two broad sub- traditions that cross-cut the major periods:

1. Hunter-gatherer-fisher societies dating from 9,000 BC to AD 500; and
2. Horticultural societies dating from AD 500 to 1700.

While the timing and precise route of the entrance of the first peoples of North America is still the subject of considerable debate, there is consensus that North America was initially populated by people arriving from Asia by way of the Bering Land Bridge. This 'bridge' connected Alaska and Siberia at the height of the glacial advances when sea levels were much lower than they are today. These conditions occurred several different times in the past, most recently at c. 12,000 years ago, and before that at between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago. Various routes from Alaska to the southern parts of North America have been proposed. One of the most likely, along the Pacific coast on the continental shelf, is now inundated, and early sites are underwater. Another route is traced through an ice-free corridor along the western edge of the Rocky Mountains. Whatever the original route, native peoples inhabited the continental United States by 12,000 years ago and moved into the Lower Great Lakes region from the south as the last glaciers retreated. One site in southwestern Pennsylvania (Meadowcroft Rock Shelter), located just south of the maximum extent of the glaciers, may have been occupied as early as 18,000 years ago. People first entered southern Ontario at about 11,000 years ago.

Paleo-Indian (9000 - 8000 BC)
The first occupants of southern Ontario are collectively referred to as Paleo-Indians and moved into the province from the south around 11,000 years ago. They are recognizable by distinctive styles of spear or javelin points manufactured from chert (a type of rock like flint which can be chipped to produce tools with sharp, durable edges). Often the types of chert these tools were manufactured from can be traced to origins hundreds of kilometres away. These early hunters lived in an environment much like the modern Arctic (because, in part, of the presence of glaciers not far to the north) and appear to have oriented their lifestyle around the pursuit and interception of migratory herds of caribou. It is, therefore, believed that these people employed relatively large areas for their hunting territories and may have traveled hundreds of kilometres in a single year. There are twelve Paleo-Indian components recorded in Halton, a surprisingly large number considering how rare sites from this period are in other parts of southern Ontario. Some Paleo-Indian sites have been found along the top of the Lake Iroquois shoreline, but none have been excavated and reported in the archaeological literature.

Bibliography
Ellis, C. J. and N. Ferris. 1990. The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650. London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, London, Ontario
Finlayson, William D. 1998. Iroquoian Peoples of the Land of the Land of Rocks and Water, A.D. 1000-1650: A Study in Settlement Archaeology. London, Ontario: London Museum of Archaeology.
Smith, David G. 1997. Archaeological Systematics and the Analysis of Iroquoian Ceramics: A Case Study from the Crawford Lake Area, Ontario. London, Ontario: London Museum of Archaeology.
Tooker, E. 1964. An Ethnography of the Huron Indians 1615 - 1649. American Bureau of Ethnology, Bulletin 190.
Trigger, B. G. (editor). 1978. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 15: Northeast. Smithsonian, Washington.
Trigger, B. G. 1985. Natives and Newcomers: Canada's 'Heroic Age' Reconsidered. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal.
Trigger, B. G. 1990. The Huron: Farmers of the North (Second Edition). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, New York.
Wright, J. V. 1966. The Ontario Iroquois Tradition. National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 210.
Wright, J. V. 1972. Ontario Prehistory: An Eleven-thousand-year Archaeological Outline. National Museums of Canada, Ottawa.
Ellis, C. J. and N. Ferris, The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650. London Chapter, Ontario Archaeological Society, London, Ontario, 1990.

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