Chapter 2 – Peopling the Land
Topic 2.1 – Peopling the Land
Chapter Two
 1. Many cultures have creation stories or beliefs
that suggest humans are the product of intelligent
design
 It is a theory that life, or the universe, cannot
have arisen by chance. That it as designed and
created by some intelligent entity.
 Ex. Belief in an almighty creator.
 2. Others use scientific data to help explain that
humans first evolved in Africa about 200,000 years
ago and spread around the world.
 Ex: Evolution.
 How did humans get from Africa to the Americas,
which are surrounded by water?
Your book states
that scientific data
suggests that Homo
sapiens first evolved
in Africa about
200,000 years ago!
Recently, with more
powerful geological
dating methods,
the earliest Homo
erectus fossils from
China have been
dated to 1.9 million
years ago. This
requires an even
earlier date for the
emergence of Homo
ergaster in Africa,
implying humans
first evolved about
2.5 million years
ago.
Sometime between 9000 and
50,000 years ago humans are
believed to have arrived in the
Americas.
A land bridge called Beringia
connected Siberia to Alaska allowing
a migration route that facilitated
population distribution.
It is believed that people then spread
across the Americas, including Labrador
and Newfoundland diversifying into
many distinct cultural groups.
Open your books to page 89 and lets review
the map together.
 This is a theory that a group of people crossed over
a land bridge called Berignia. This is a land bridge
that is believed to have been used to migrate .
 Believed to have happened during the last ice age
(between 9,000 – 50,000 years ago).
 The land bridge connected Siberia to Alaska
 This land bridge is now located below the ocean
 Once disappeared, there were two distinct groups
of people living side-by-side, yet, oblivious to one
another.
 1. “OLD” World – Parts of the world known to
Europeans, Asians, and Africans.
 2. “NEW” World – the Americas and Oceania
New World (the
Americas and Oceana)
Old World (the parts of the world then known
to Europeans, Africans and Asians)
•At the close of the 15th century there were approximately
40-60 million people living in the Americas.
•The Aztec empire in Mexico
•Incan empire in Peru
were the most densely settled parts of the Americas
 These areas were Agrarian - depends on
agriculture as its primary means for support and
sustenance - with a few large centers, such as the
Aztec city.
 Approximately 250,000 people lived in central
Mexico 1500’s. Making it larger than any
European city of the time.
 Agrarian (or agricultural) lifestyle was
common outside large cities.
In other parts of the early Americas, especially
modern-day Brazil, Canada and the US, the
population consisted mostly of hunter-gatherer
societies.
Hunter-Gatherers - most or all food is obtained
from wild plants and animals
 It is estimated that a hunter-gatherer needed
ten (10) km of land to gather enough resources
to survive.
 Eventually hunter-gatherer groups expanded in
search of new resources.
 They had set up extensive trade networks and
alliance systems.
 They would trade
 Food (Fish)
 Raw Materials (obsidian, CHERT) CHERT -
fine-grained silica-rich microcrystalline,
cryptocrystalline or micro fibrous sedimentary
rock that may contain small fossils
 Manufactured Items (pottery, knives)
Extensive trade network
Trade allowed different groups to get resources not
found in their own areas while creating alliances
with neighboring groups.
dried fish,
and beans , were
commonly traded food
goods.
maize,
Raw materials traded included obsidian, chert
and shells.
While manufactured items include pottery, knives and
needles.
 It’s populations was approximately 80-100 million
people
 Largely rural and Agricultural - also called
farming or husbandry, is the cultivation of
animals, plants, fungi, and other life forms for
food, fiber, bio fuel and other products used to
sustain life.
 Most people practiced
farming
 They were experiencing a
rapid population growth.
 Lead to a need for larger
food supplies
 Need for more land
 Began to look outward for
resources
Portfolio Questions
Page 113, answer questions #1 - 4
When finished put inside your portfolio
(Binder)
Unit 2
Topic 2.2 – Who Was Here?
 Archaeologists estimate that the first human
residents of our province arrived about 7000 BCE
in Labrador.
 Aboriginal people assert that they have always
been here and have many beautiful creation stories
to explain their beginnings.
Amerindians.
Thule
Paleo-Eskimos (Paleo = old)
Norse
 Descendents of the
Beringia migration.
 The available data here
suggests that small groups
of generalized foragers
occupied mid-continental
North America before
14,000 years ago
 Culturally different
from paleo-Americans
 The term "Paleo-Eskimo" is used to
refer to the peoples of the Arctic
who moved into northern Labrador
approximately 2100 BCE
 The first known group, “pre-
Dorset”, lived primarily in
sheltered inner areas along the
North Labrador coast.
Check out how they made
these pots on Page 118
L’Anse Amour
(we’ll get to it
shortly)
 The Thule are the prehistoric
ancestors of the Labrador Inuit
who now live in northern Labrador.
 Many archaeologists believe that
around 1000 years ago, as the
climate of the earth warmed, leads
opened up in the ice of the
Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf
allowing these north Alaskan people
to follow bowhead whales eastward
in the summer.
 Members of the Thule culture developed a
remarkable technology to deal with the
Arctic. In a region where Europeans and their
descendants have never been able to live
without outside assistance, the Thule people
flourished.
 The Thule culture, as archaeologists would call
it, rapidly spread out across the Canadian
Arctic and eventually to Greenland and
Labrador.
•These remarkable
people were able to use
the bones, teeth and
skins of the animals
they killed in order to
hunt those same
animals.
A 7500 year-old Labrador Archaic burial mound
located in L’Anse Amour, Labrador contains the
body of an adolescent.
Buried in a ceremonial manner, the body was face
down in a pit with a large flat stone placed on the
lower back. Evidence shows that food was cooked on
fires lit around the body.
Weapons and tools were placed with the body
which was then covered by a mound of rocks
A whistle made from bird bone, a whetstone for
sharpening tools, a worked walrus tusk and an
antler pestle were some of the items found.
The manner of burial suggests that s/he may have
had an important role in the tribe.
The first Europeans known definitely to set foot in
Newfoundland were the Norse. Beginning in the eighth
century, they burst out of their cultural homeland in
Scandinavia (particularly Norway) in a series of
expansionist waves of migration triggered by unknown
causes -- possibly overpopulation, possibly political
unrest.
There is a test coming up on these two sections:
topic 2.1 Peopling the Land and
topic 2.2 Who was Here
Read carefully through pages assigned in the textbook.
There are important maps, timelines, images etc. that
you should pay careful attention to. I would
recommend taking notes to complete those taken from
this presentation. Go to the beginning of your notes
and add details as you read through the assigned pages.
The Norse appearance in Newfoundland was the final
step in a relatively peaceful expansion of livestock
farmers across the North Atlantic. The discovery of
the Norse habitation at L'Anse aux Meadows gave
powerful support for those who believed that Vinland
was in Newfoundland.
L'Anse aux Meadows appears to have been a small
settlement of about eight buildings and no more than
75 people, mostly sailors, carpenters, blacksmiths,
hired hands and perhaps even serfs or slaves. It is
probable therefore that the settlement was a base
camp for repairing and maintaining Norse ships.
 80 – 100 million people (16th Century)
 largely rural & agrarian
 Population expanded greatly – approximately 70
people per square km.
 People began to look outward for resources
Portfolio Questions
Page 119, answer questions #1 & 3
When finished put inside your portfolio
(Binder)