It is difficult, if not impossible, to subsist on the meagre resources of the Newfoundland interior and the Beothuks were able to do so for less than two hundred years. Other factors, such as the European diseases, devastating to many New World peoples, were against them. We know that Beothuks often died of tuberculosis. Until the late eighteenth century when they became the object of several attempts to rescue them from extinction, the Beothuks were generally ignored by the Europeans. Very little trade was carried out with the Beothuks, and little effort was made to Christianize them. Efforts to save the Beothuks failed partly because of the factors mentioned above and partly because of the hostilities which have been the subject of a number of books and articles in the last two decades. The last known Beothuk, Shanawdithit, died in 1829.
Thule Tradition and Labrador Eskimos (500 years ago to present)
The last prehistoric people to migrate to Labrador were a race of arctic people whose descendants still populate the Labrador coast. They arrived from the north as had the earlier Palaeo-Eskimos, and probably found the land devoid of humans and teeming with game. These people were different from their Palaeo- Eskimo predecessors, however, for they crossed to Labrador in large skin boats called umiaks, and much lighter and more mobile kayaks, and brought with them dogs and dog sleds. In contrast to the Palaeo-Eskimos, they regularly hunted white whales, although sea mammals and birds, fish, and land mammals were also hunted as in times past.
A trend to ever-larger house forms began perhaps around the mid-seventeenth century. Originally living in villages of small oval houses, the people began to live in multi-family houses until, by the mid-eighteenth century, they were, living in large rectangular dwellings, some as large as fifteen by nine metres. This change in house forms coincided with a slight worsening of the climate and the coming of Europeans to the Labrador coast. Both have been used to explain the shift in Inuit house styles. One hypothesis holds that the weather and European whalers combined to deplete whale populations, thus leaving the Inuit to subsist on seals and other smaller game. Sharing became important for group survival, which would be much more efficient in communal houses. Another theory is that these large households grew up around "great men" who had achieved their high status as a result of wealth acquired in trading ventures with Europeans. The truth may lie somewhere between the two.
In any event, the Labrador Inuit were not as detrimentally affected by the European presence as were the Beothuks. They were as quick to adopt some of the European technology, but perhaps because of their remote location, their way of life was not immediately undermined. European influence was increasingly felt over the eighteenth century culminating late in the century with the establishment of Moravian mission stations and trading posts at several locations in northern Labrador.
Inuit dependence on Europeans for such things as shot, powder, and even food increased, and the large communal dwellings gave way to smaller single-family houses considered more suitable for Europeans. Eventually traditional native settlements were abandoned in favour of locations near the mission stations where commodities were more easily available. Despite the decline in the influence of the Moravians, this settlement pattern persists today. Nevertheless, the Labrador Inuit have managed to retain a good measure of their heritage in spite of skidoos, rifles and television. The recent cultural resurgence indicates that many aspects of traditional culture will be preserved for many generations to come.
Summary
We can see that the 9,000-year human history of Newfoundland and Labrador is in many ways like a giant jigsaw puzzle from which many of the pieces are missing. We do know that there have been several migrations of people to the province, including an early Indian group about 9,000 years ago and several more recent migrations of Palaeo-Eskimos and Inuit.
It is possible that the descendants of the first people became so well adjusted to life along the Atlantic coast that they persisted through the Maritime Archaic, Intermediate and Recent Indian periods until the coming of the Europeans. Palaeo- Eskimos, on the other hand, seem to have arrived at two times, about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago. Each time, they spread through-out parts of the province, flourished for a while, and subsequently became extinct. The reasons for these extinctions continue to perplex archaeologists.
Despite, or perhaps because of, these and other unanswered questions, the prehistory of Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the most fascinating in Canada. The contacts between Indians and Eskimos, existence on the edges of two environments, the influence of the sea on cultural development, and other topics are now under investigation by archaeologists. In the next decade, significant new information bearing on these questions is expected to emerge.
