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We learn about prehistoric people through the artifacts that have survived over time because no written records exist. Since many artifacts have disappeared due to age, the environment, and modern development, we mainly rely on stone tools and their locations to understand early people. Later groups are better understood because more artifacts have survived, and we have found burial sites and homes where they lived.
The first people in present-day West Virginia were Paleo-Indians, who lived around 10,500-9,000 B.C. They came from Asia and were big game hunters. The climate was much colder, and they hunted animals such as mastodons, mammoths, and caribou. They...
During the Early Archaic period (8000-6000 B.C.), the climate became milder, which contributed to the extinction of mammoths, mastodons, and several other animals. People shifted from hunting large animals to hunting deer and small mammals and gat...
The Early Woodland period (1000-200 B.C.) saw three big changes: making pottery, building burial mounds, and the emergence of extensive trade networks. Pottery appeared around 1000 B.C. West Virginia has recorded more than 400 prehistoric mounds b...
people started raising corn more intensively and living in permanent villages. Common artifacts from this time include shell-tempered pottery, triangular arrowheads, ceramic pipes, shell tools, and bone beads. Villages were usually circular and ra...
During the Protohistoric period (1550-1690 A.D.), Indian villages in present-day West Virginia had access to European trade goods but no direct contact with Europeans. The Fort Ancient sites include the Buffalo, Clover, and Rolfe sites, with Rolfe...
Indians during the Frontier Period
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