First immigrants:
Native American settlement of North Carolina
By Stephen R. Claggett
Over four
hundred years
ago, English
colonists trying to settle
on Roanoke Island
encountered many
Native Americans
along the coast. At
that time more than
thirty Native American
tribes were living in
present-day North
Carolina. They spoke
languages derived
from three language
groups, the Siouan,
Iroquoian, and
Algonquian.
Where did these
Native Americans
come from? Who
were their prehistoric
ancestors? How do
we know anything at all about them?
None of the prehistoric Native
Americans who lived in North
America had developed any sort of
written language. They relied
instead on orai traditions, such as
storytelling, to keep records of their
origins, myths, and histories. Our
present knowledge of prehistoric
inhabitants of this state depends on
rare early historical accounts and,
especially, on information gained
through archaeology.
In the Pleistocene epoch, more than twelve thousand years ago, the climate of present-day
North Carolina was different. Paleo-lndians hunted now extinct animals such as the woolly
mammoth for food and clothing.
Prehistoric Native Americans
Archaeologists can trace the
ancestry of Native Americans to at
least twelve thousand years age, to
the time of the last Ice Age in the
Pleistocene epoch. During the Ice
Age, ocean levels dropped and
revealed land that had previously
been under the Bering Sea. Native
American ancestors walked on that
'and from present-day Siberia to
Alaska. Evidence suggests that their
population grew rapidly and that they
Because prehistoric Indians did not have a
written language to preserve their history,
much of what we know about them comes
from archaeology. Archaeologists can study
artifacts like these spear points (left), which
date back to the time of the Archaic Indians,
to learn more about how these Native
Americans lived. Just like their ancestors, the
Paleo-lndians (above), Archaic Indians did not
have bows and arrows. They used spears to
hunt and probably hunted in groups.
settled throughout Canada, the
Great Plains, and the Eastern
Woodlands, which included the
North Carolina area.
The climate on the eastern
seaboard was wetter and cooler
twelve thousand years ago. Many
species of animals roamed the
forests and grasslands of our area,
including now extinct examples of
elephants (mastodons), wild horses,
ground sloths, and giant bison.
Other animals, now absent from the
Southeast, included moose, caribou,
elk, and porcupines.
Paleo-lndians, as archaeologists
call those first people, hunted for
these animals in groups using
spears. They used the animals’
meat, skins, and remaining parts for
food, clothing, and other needs.
They also spent considerable time
gathering wild plant foods and may
have caught shellfish and fish.
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