Indian Prehistory as Revealed by Archaeology

Abstract

Although the many diverse languages and customs of our Indians suggest that Canada was occupied for countless centuries before its discovery by Europeans, the remains of its prehistoric inhabitants are seldom conspicuous, and in many districts hardly discoverable even with careful research. There are no architectural ruins similar to the cliff dwellings in the southwest of the United States, the stone temples, walls and highways of Central America and Peru, or the brick and stone monuments of the Old World. Stone entered into the construction of dwellings only on the Arctic and sub-Arctic coastlines, where alone we find habitations, still partly intact, that lead us back to the centuries preceding Columbus. The bark wigwams of the eastern Indians were impermanent structures frequently dismantled and removed to another site, and the skin tents of the plains and Mackenzie River tribes left no marks except circles of stones or faint depressions in the soil. West of the Rocky mountains, and in southeastern Ontario, the Indians occupied the same village sites for several years in succession; but even in these regions few traces of their dwellings remain, because the wood of which they were built rapidly disintegrated with the moisture and changing temperature.