The Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, Maryland State Museum of Archaeology tells us that, the 1st human beings arrived in Maryland sometime during the end of the last glacial period. There is some evidence of possible pre-Clovis occupation of the region as early as 18,000 years ago. The Clovis wer a distinct Paleoindian group originally named for a distinctively shaped fluted stone spearpoint used to hunt megafauna. The Clovis people are generally regarded as the earliest human inhabitants of the New World. It is generally agreed that by about 11,500 years ago, Paleoindian people using Clovis tools had moved into Maryland & left evidence of their lives in the archaeological record. The Paleoindian cultural period (10000 B.C. to 7500 B.C.) was a time of radical climatic change at the transition of the Pleistocene to the Holocene at the end of the last ice age. The Ice Age was a geologic period of long-term reduction in the Earth’s temperature which resulted in an expansion of the continental & polar ice sheets.
At the time people arrived in Maryland, the ice age was coming to an end, though the climate was still much colder & wetter than it is today. Mobile hunters probably came into the region that is now Maryland in pursuit of game. These Paleoindians lived in small family bands & moved frequently, following the migration of animals & keeping a seasonal pattern of rotation from place to place. Human beings arrived in Maryland on a wave of change as a series of large-scale climatic shifts began to have a transformative effect on Maryland’s environment. A strong warming trend marked the onset of the Holocene epoch, which caused tremendous changes to the landscape, plants, & animals of the region. Holocene is a geological epoch which began approximately 10,000 years ago & continues into the present. One of the biggest changes associated with this warming trend was a period of sea level rise that continues into the present.
Throughout the Holocene, climatic conditions grew increasingly warmer & drier, causing formerly dominant animals & plants to be replaced by others who could thrive in the new landscape. The coastlines of the Chesapeake Bay & its many tributaries were particularly attractive to humans settling in Maryland. In addition to being a highly productive estuary, the Bay also provided a highway of rivers & creeks provided easy transportation routes. Archaeologists have found evidence that Native American campsites were focused along waterways. Pottery, tools, & shellfish remains from Maryland have been recovered up & down the Atlantic coast – suggesting that objects & ideas were moved around by waterborne trade.
Ten thousand years ago, if not earlier, the megafauna had become extinct, & by 9000 years ago, our modern mixed hardwood forests began to form. The Pleistocene Megafauna, the giant land animals of the last ice age like mammoth, mastodon & giant bear which are now extinct. By about 8,000 years ago, a continuing warming trend kept glaciers melting & the resulting sea level rise flooded the continental shelf, causing the widening of the Chesapeake Bay & its tributaries. Between 6,000 & 3,000 years ago, the modern outlines of the Chesapeake shore began to take shape.
These significant changes in Maryland’s environment altered the ways in which people lived. New types of tools, & new patterns in the size & location of campsites, were developed. New means of obtaining & storing food took shape – ways which were better suited to Maryland’s evolving hardwood forest landscape. This time of cultural adjustment to a new environment is called the Archaic period. The Archaic cultural period (7500 B.C. to 1000 B.C) is divided into the Early Archaic (7500 B.C. - 6000 B.C.), Middle Archaic (6000 B.C. – 3500 B.C.) & Late Archaic (3500 B.C. – 1000 B.C.) sub periods. Archaic peoples lived in small groups in widely-scattered encampments. Their lives were largely nomadic, with hunting & gathering filling their subsistence needs.
Archaeological evidence documents gradual changes in this way of life by the end of the Archaic period. Important shifts in the way Native people used the land & its resources define the Transitional Archaic period. The number & size of archaeological sites increases, suggesting that denser populations of people lived more intensively on the land. There is also archaeological evidence of seasonal aggregation for ceremonial purposes. At this time, people also began using new technologies, including different kinds of tools & pottery.
See:
Dent, Richard J. 1995 Chesapeake Prehistory. Old Traditions, New Directions. Plenum Press, New
York.
Grumet, Robert S. 2000 Bay, Plain, and Piedmont: A Landscape History of the Chesapeake Heartland from 1.3 Billion Years Ago to 2000. The Chesapeake Bay Heritage Context Project. U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Annapolis, Maryland.
Reinhart, Theodore R. and Mary Ellen Hodges, eds.1990 Early and Middle Archaic Research in Virginia. Special Publication of the Archeological Society of Virginia. Richmond.
Reinhart, Theodore R. and Mary Ellen Hodges, eds. 1991 Late Archaic and Early Woodland Research in Virginia. Special Publication of the Archeological Society of Virginia. Richmond.
