The account of what happened in Newfoundland and Labrador before written records is complex. Only in the last two decades have archaeologists begun to understand the long story of the province's prehistoric peoples. What little evidence has been recovered from the ground, where it has lain buried for as many as 9,000 years, suggests that the story unravelling about-past peoples, past ways of life and past events may be one of the most interesting in Canada. In large measure this is a result of Newfoundland and Labrador's physical geography, which includes true arctic environments and more temperate regions, bordered by more than 15,000 kilometres of coastline. People we would recognize as Indians and those known as Eskimos, or as they prefer to be called today, Inuit, occupied the province at various, and occasionally the same, times in the past. The cultural responses of these different peoples to the environment, especially the coast, and to each other make the past of Newfoundland and Labrador intriguing to archaeologists.
Perhaps the most straightforward way to tell the story of the prehistoric peoples of the province is to organize the information archaeologists have recovered into a number of traditions. By this we mean ways of life typical of a particular group (or groups) of people which can be defined in space and which have some persistence in time. Thus the earliest inhabitants of Newfoundland and Labrador were succeeded by the people of the Maritime Archaic Indian tradition which probably lasted from 7,500 to 3,500 years ago. A Palaeo-Eskimo tradition lasted from about 4,000 years ago until less than 1,000 years ago, and post-Archaic cultures ancestral to those of the historic period began as early as 3,000 years ago. The Thule or Labrador Eskimo tradition continues to the present and can be traced back as far as 500 years. Each of these groups of people, their ways of life, and what we know of their histories will be looked at here. But first, the resources of the province will be outlined.
Natural Resources
The prehistoric human populations of Newfoundland and Labrador were supported largely by the resources of the seacoast. In the north, ringed and bearded seals were plentiful; harp seals occurred all along the Labrador coast; and harbour and grey seals predominated in southern Newfoundland. Walrus were probably also found in many coastal areas. Whales, dolphins, and porpoises may have been hunted by prehistoric people and they no doubt used the meat, oil, bone and baleen of the whales that were stranded onshore.
We cannot be certain of the extent to which prehistoric people were able to exploit fish, such as salmon, capelin, and cod, which later formed the backbone of the province's economy. Salmon may have been speared in shallow rivers and pools, and capelin may have simply been gathered as they "rolled" on beaches while spawning during June. As yet, there has been no evidence of hook and line fishing by prehistoric peoples; deep-water fish, such as cod, may have been beyond the capability of early technology.
Sea birds, such as murres, gulls, gannets, loons, and the now extinct flightless Great Auk, were a source of meat, eggs, and feathers. Bird bones were used to make whistles, needles and other items.
The land mammals commonly used by the prehistoric peoples of the area were the caribou and the beaver. Used at least occasionally were the black bear and smaller fur-bearing animals, such as the otters and marten.
In addition to food and skins these creatures provided bone, antler and ivory for making weapons and tools. Implements were also made from wood and stone. Where it was available, wood was probably the most widely used material. North of the tree line, bits of driftwood were probably salvaged wherever possible. Hard rocks such as quartz, quartzite, chert, and slate were made into cutting tools by flaking and grinding. Certain types of stone with particularly desirable properties were traded by prehistoric peoples throughout the province. Chert from quarries in Ramah Bay northern Labrador, and beach cobbles from Cow Head on the west coast, for example, were used in other areas even though local materials were available. Soapstone occurs in less than a dozen places in the province, but during some periods it was traded along the entire coastline.
Earliest Inhabitants (9,000 to 7,500 years ago)
We cannot be certain when, how, or from where the first people to set foot in what is now Newfoundland and Labrador arrived. We are quite sure, however, that by about 9,000 years ago small bands of people moving northeastward along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River had become established in southernmost Labrador along the Strait of Belle Isle. From certain similarities between their stone tools and weapons and others from even earlier sites in New England and the Maritime Provinces, we believe that their origins may lie to the south.
Although their small campsites are now up to one kilometre from the coast and average more than twenty-five metres above sea level, the earliest inhabitants were probably coastal hunters. Geologists tell us that the coastline of Labrador is still emerging from the sea as it rebounds from the weight of glacial ice; consequently, sites now far removed from the sea were active beaches about 10,000 years ago. The resources of the Strait of Belle Isle were literally at the hunters' front door therefore, and direct access by boat to the campsites was possible.
Very little is left of the objects lost, discarded, or left behind by these early people. Even less remains of the dwellings in which they lived, although occasional stone hearths and scattered rocks suggest the probable use of skin tents, framed with local wood, held down at the edges by rocks, and warmed by a central fireplace. Nothing remains to tell us what these people looked like, what sorts of food they chose or were able to obtain, or anything about their social or intellectual culture.
We guess they were hunters of the same birds, sea and land mammals, and fish as were their descendants about whom we have more information. We think that they spent most of the year near the coast where they arranged themselves into small family bands. They probably had already made certain technological and intel- lectual adjustments to life in southern Labrador, but until sites with preserved organic materials are discovered we will be able to say little about them.
Maritime Archaic Tradition (7,500 to 3,500 years ago)
Some groups continued the slow expansion northward along the Labrador coast until, about 5,000 years ago, they reached Saglek and Ramah Bays well north of the tree line. Archaeologists have now investigated a number of campsites occupied throughout these people's range and enough information has been recovered to allow us to make a reasonably complete reconstruction of their way of life.
Archaeologists' conjectures about the hunting patterns of these people were confirmed with the discovery in 1974 of a burial mound on the road to L'Anse-Amour in southern Labrador. It contained the skeletal remains of an Indian child along with a variety of stone, bone, antler and ivory artifacts. With the objects made of the bones of caribou, walrus, and birds was found a toggling harpoon. Thus, as early as 7,500 years ago the people of southern Labrador were well-equipped to harvest the resources of the coast. Artistic embellishments on tools and weapons, the use of paints to decorate their equipment and very likely themselves, and the manufacture of a musical instrument further demonstrates the sophistication of this sea-oriented culture - a culture sufficiently well adjusted to life on the coast to have had the intellectual and economic wherewithal necessary to create the elaborate and unusual burial discovered at L'Anse-Amour.
The orientation to the sea, even by this early date, is so complete that we place the people represented by the L'Anse-Amour site within the Maritime Archaic tradition, a culture first described on the basis of earlier discoveries at another burial site. Located on the west coast of Newfoundland, just south of the Strait of Belle Isle, the 3,500-year-old Port au Choix cemetery yielded a large and apparently full range of bone, antler and ivory tools, weapons and decorative or magical objects. Bone preservation was excellent as the burials were in beach soil containing many shell bits which made it alkaline. More than fifty graves holding over one hundred individuals were excavated in 1968, allowing archaeologists to make an especially complete reconstruction of the Maritime Archaic culture. While a great deal was learned from the skeletons, as much, if not more, was learned from the artifacts interred with them.
The presence at the bones of seals, whales, walrus, polar bears and virtually the entire range of Newfoundland sea birds, including the now-extinct Great Auk, indicates that the life of the ancient people of Port au Choix was as closely connected with the sea as was that of their ancestors of the southern Labrador coast. Also recovered were stone and bone weapons for taking these marine species, as well as upland game. Small fur-bearers such as otter and mink may have been trapped.
Butchering was probably done with chipped stone knives, which were not found at Port-au-Choix, although they are well known from other Maritime Archaic sites in both Newfoundland and Labrador. The recovery of weapons and other implements of bone, antler and ivory is proof that the people of Port au Choix split, whittled and ground these materials to form a variety of utilitarian objects. We can also be quite certain that wood was an important raw material, although none has yet been found on any Maritime Archaic site. We are sure that it was used because a large number of wood-working tools -- stone axes, adzes, and gouges -- have been found at Maritime Archaic sites; at Port au Choix even fine chisels and knives tipped with ground beaver incisors were unearthed. Such tools likely were used to fashion locally available hard -- and soft-woods into everything from boats, tent frames and tool and weapon handles to delicate pendants similar to the exquisite examples discovered in bone and antler.
These artifacts demonstrate the "practical" adjustments of the Maritime Archaic people to the physical environment they encountered in Newfoundland and Labrador, but the graves at Port au Choix also give evidence of an equally strong spiritual and intellectual interaction with their homeland. Almost every grave revealed the deliberate inclusion of the claws, teeth, bills or other elements of birds and animals hunted by the Port au Choix people. There were also small carvings of various birds and a bear's head that served as hair ornaments or pendants. Finally, a number of white pebbles, crystals, concretions and other objects that seem to have no utilitarian purpose were recovered. These might have been mere decorations, but we believe that their presence has a much deeper significance. More recent people who live by hunting, fishing, and collecting have belief systems designed to ensure a plentiful supply of food, skins, and other raw materials; to enable individuals to acquire desirable personal qualities; and to assist in controlling those parts of human existence over which they have no direct control. Therefore, by possessing the teeth, claws or some other symbol of a seal, for example, a Maritime Archaic hunter might also somehow obtain advantage over the seals he was hunting. Perhaps the bill or foot of a gull or a loon would make its owner as successful at fishing as these birds. The feet or teeth of a fox or bear might impart to the persons who carried them the cunning or strength of these animals. More difficult to interpret are the crystals, pebbles, and other objects, but it is likely that their inclusion in the graves was no accident.
We can see, then, that the Maritime Archaic way of life was successfully adapted in every respect to the environment Maritime Archaic Indian people are known to have occupied virtually the entire coast of the island of Newfoundland and the Labrador coast as far north as Ramah Bay. For more than 4,000 years between approximately 7,500 to 3,500 years ago these people had the province to themselves and enjoyed the bounty of the forests, the barrens, and the sea.
Shortly after 4,000 years ago a dramatic event occurred which was to change the course of Newfoundland and Labrador prehistory. This event was not a natural phenomenon, although it may have been related to a deterioration in the climate which took place at about the same time. It was, rather, what might be termed a social event. To be precise, the first of a group of people radically, linguistically, culturally, and historically different from the Maritime Archaic peoples arrived in northern Labrador.
Palaeo-Eskimo Culture (4,000 to 1,000 years ago)
These newcomers were people whose ancestors had spread eastward across the top of the world from Alaska, probably in pursuit of musk-oxen and other land and sea mammals, until they reached what is now known as northernmost Greenland. During this expansion they very likely established small settlements along the way, and over time, people from these northern communities began to explore new and unfamiliar lands in all directions. Some of their wanderings led them southward, and attracted by game, they eventually made their way to Labrador.
Archaeologists refer to these people as Palaeo-Eskimos and categorize their culture as the Arctic Small Tool tradition. The first term derives from their arctic origin and their place in prehistoric time, and the second describes the extremely small and finely chipped stone tools and weapons they manufactured. Physically, Palaeo-Eskimo people resembled the modern Inuit, with short, stocky builds, probably straight black hair, and similar facial features. They may even have spoken a language related to that of the modern Inuit.
Although the first migrants to high arctic Canada and Greenland may have depended on musk-oxen and other land mammals and birds for food, Palaeo-Eskimos soon developed an efficient technology for killing seals, walrus, and other sea mammals. This may have been related to their arrival in Labrador and, more specifically, to their contacts with the Maritime Archaic Indians there. We know that the Archaic Indians possessed a sea-hunting' technology that included the toggling harpoon, a device effective in killing seals and walrus. The earliest Palaeo-Eskimos, on the other hand, made do with a distinctive, but probably less efficient, form of barbed harpoon. Thus, it is likely that the Palaeo-Eskimos learned of toggling harpoons in Labrador and that the principle spread rapidly throughout the Arctic. By allowing them to add sea mammal meat, skins, and ivory to their economic base, the toggling harpoon may have brought about a significant change in their way of life. The Palaeo-Eskimos' combined economy of sea mammals, birds, fish, and land animals approached closely the game of Maritime Archaic people and consequently resulted in certain similarities in their ways of life.
The Arctic Small Tool tradition of the early Palaeo-Eskimo people included arrow points, harpoon endblades, scrapers, and knives, all exquisitely chipped from colourful cherts. These were used for a variety of tasks, and some highly distinctive tools were fashioned specifically for working bone and for certain cutting operations. A burin, a small chipped stone tool sharpened at one end, was used for shaping bone, antler and ivory; thin, sharp microblades were used for cutting skins and wood.
Little has been preserved of the organic materials used by early palaeo-Eskimos in Newfoundland and Labrador. Even at other sites in the Arctic, where conditions are more favourable, the number of tools and weapons found is very small. In spite of this, archaeologists believe that the life of the Palaeo-Eskimos, while perilous at times, was probably enriched by myths, songs, jokes and other intangibles.
Early Palaeo-Eskimos occupied the province from nearly 4,000 years ago until about 2,200 years ago. During this time they spread southward from Labrador to the island of Newfoundland. Here archaeologists have recovered tiny chipped stone tools and weapons similar to those from northern Labrador. By 2,300 or 2,400 years ago, however, their numbers began to diminish and no early Palaeo-Eskimo sites have been dated more recently than about 2,200 years ago. Present evidence suggest that these people became extinct at about this time and were replaced by other Palaeo-Eskimo people known to archaeologists as Dorset Eskimos.
A few Dorset Eskimo sites in far northern Labrador overlap those of the early Palaeo-Eskimos in time, but over most of the province there is a gap of 300-400 years between the two cul- tures. Moreover, although there are broad similarities between the artifacts made by the two groups, there are enough specific differences to indicate that the evolution from early Palaeo- Eskimo to Dorset Eskimo probably did not take place in Newfound- land and Labrador. However, we do not yet have evidence of its occurrence elsewhere in the Canadian Arctic.
In the three or four centuries following their first appear- ance in northern Labrador, the Dorset people spread rapidly throughout the entire province and their distribution and numbers eventually exceeded those of their early Palaeo-Eskimo predecessors.
Initially the tools and weapons used by these people were remarkably similar throughout the province, but as time went on variations in their design began to reflect the degree of isolation among groups of Dorset people. In some measure this may also have been a result of different environmental conditions. For example, while the Dorset people of the Labrador coast and northwestern Newfoundland continued to hunt the large herds of harp seals that appeared each spring, the people who settled in eastern Newfoundland and along the south coast, where harp seals were not available, depended more heavily on harbour seals and perhaps on caribou and other land animals. The isolation of these two groups from one another is reflected in their artifacts as well. For instance, the eastern group made little use of soap- stone lamps and bowls but probably used readily available wood as a source of fuel rather than seal fat. The stone points used to tip harpoons and other weapons remained triangular but were sharpened by grinding rather than chipping. These and other differences help archaeologists distinguish between these two groups of related people.
Where conditions permitted, some of the Dorset people settled in large villages which were used both summer and winter. At one such village at Cape Riche, Newfoundland, near Port au Choix, more than thirty-five rectangular depressions are visible. Each marks the location of a former house, excavated a short way into the ground and having sod walls, wood rafters, and a roof of hide and sod. Each has a central fireplace, but outdoor hearths have also been found, suggesting that the site was a year-round base camp with a permanent population. Small hunting, fishing, or collecting parties probably left camp for a few days to obtain resources not immediately available. The Gulf of St. Lawrence was only a few metres away, however, and its bounty went a long way toward satisfying the Dorset people's needs.
The magical and religious beliefs of these Dorset people may have had some basic similarities to those of the Archaic Indians. No doubt they were developed to ensure a successful hunt and the acquisition of desirable personal qualities. The evidence for these beliefs comes from small, two-dimensional carvings of seals, bears, and other animals, sometimes so highly stylized that they are almost unrecognizable. Religious practice is also suggested by masks and other paraphernalia, which may have belonged to shamans whose ability to communicate with the spirit world enabled them to intercede on behalf of the Dorset people.
After about 1,400 years ago, the Dorset people began to diminish in numbers in much the same way as had the early Palaeo-Eskimo people a few centuries earlier. Again, archaeologists do not know why this happened, but the causes may have been the same as those responsible for the demise of the early Palaeo-Eskimo people. We do know that small remnant populations existed in eastern Newfoundland for a few centuries and in northern Labrador until well after A.D. 1,000. Perhaps environmental conditions were more stable in these areas requiring less adaptation on the part of the people. Only further research will provide the answers to this most perplexing problem of Palaeo-Eskimo prehistory.
Post-Archaic Indians (3,500 years ago to the historic period)
If the Palaeo-Eskimo cultures of Newfoundland and Labrador, with two migrations of people and subsequent extinctions, appear confusing, the more recent Indian culture history of the province is no less so. A few years ago archaeologists thought that the Maritime Archaic Indians had disappeared completely between about 3,800 and 3,200 years ago when they were replaced by Palaeo-Eskimo people who were, in turn, replaced by more recent Indians.
As a result of research in the last decade, it now seems as though the picture is more complex. To simplify the situation somewhat, we will divide the post-archaic Indian cultures into two periods, or blocks, of time: The Intermediate Indian period (3,500 to 2,000 years ago) and the recent Indian period (2,000 years ago to European settlement).
Intermediate Indians (3,500 to 2,000 years ago)
Intermediate Indians occupied much of the central and southern Labrador coast during the 1,500 years under consideration. Although they occasionally used stone from northern Labrador for their tools and weapons, none of their campsites has been found in this area. Likewise, even though a few artifacts resembling those from Labrador have been found on the island of Newfoundland, as of 1982 not a single settlement has been found there by archaeologists. The Intermediate Indian population of Newfoundland was probably as small as that of northern Labrador.
The sites that have been excavated in central and southern Labrador are usually found on low points of land. Such areas were repeatedly visited by Intermediate Indian groups, who built large cobble fireplaces, possibly in the centre of skin tents, although no evidence of their dwellings has been found. These hearths were, however, the centres of domestic activity for around them have been found flakes of stone discarded during tool manufacture and the tools themselves, apparently lost or discarded. Once again only stone tools have been preserved. The most distinctive of these are projectile points with side-notches for hafting to a shaft, but chipped stone knives, scrapers, and elongate flakes of stone, probably used for cutting, have also been recovered. At some sites, tiny stone flakes sharpened to serve as arrow points have also been found.
While it is difficult to be specific about the origins of these people, they are likely to be descendants of the earlier Maritime Archaic folk of southern Labrador. What little we can reconstruct of their way of life seems similar to that of these earlier people, although the elaborate ground-slate technology seems to have disappeared and we have no bone, antler, or ivory artifacts which undoubtedly would shed much light on their relationships to earlier groups.
As it stands now, the Intermediate Indians represent a group of people, dispersed in small bands along the coast of central and southern Labrador, who represent a tenuous connection between earlier Archaic Indians and people who lived less than 2,000 years ago.
Recent Indians (2,000 years ago to European settlement)
Indian prehistory in Newfoundland and Labrador from 2,000 years ago to contact is somewhat better known than that of the preceding 1,500 years, although a number of problems still exist. In Labrador, a series of sites from this period have produced artifacts similar to one another which are known as the Point Revenge complex after the site where they were first found. On the island of Newfoundland, two complexes have been recognized by archaeologists: The Beaches and Little Passage complexes. The origins of the people who produced these artifacts remain unclear; migrations from the west and evolution from earlier Intermediate Indian groups have been suggested. In every case, we have only stone tools with which to work so the task of histori- cal reconstruction is very difficult.
The Point Revenge people occupied small coastal campsites not unlike those of their Intermediate Indian predecessors. At these sites are found distinctive notched projectile points, chipped stone knives, and small "thumbnail" scrapers. Strangely, almost all of these tools and weapons are made of Ramah chert from northern Labrador, even though most Recent Indian sites in Labrador are well south of the Ramah chert quarries. Whether this material was obtained through trade with Dorset Eskimos or by occasional visits to the quarries themselves remains unknown. The Point Revenge people apparently made use of the same marine and land resources as had earlier Labrador Indian groups, but the emphasis placed on each is as yet impossible to determine. Likewise, we cannot be certain of what became of these people. Although several sites date from the time when Basques and others were visiting the Labrador coast, no European materials have been found at Point Revenge sites. A collapsed wooden tent frame at one site is similar to structures built by the Montagnais Indians in historic times; it has led some authors to speculate that the Point Revenge complex represents prehistoric Montagnais culture. An alternative hypothesis, and the one favoured here, holds that the Point Revenge people were descended from the Intermediate Indians and that they became extinct in coastal Labrador very shortly after the arrival of the first Europeans during the 1500s.
The situation in Newfoundland is no less confusing although recent research has added a great deal to our knowledge of the Recent Indian period. As mentioned above, two complexes are recognized. One, the Beaches complex, is similar to the earlier Point Revenge material to which it may be related. Although locally available stone replaces Ramah chert, the projectile points, knives, and scrapers are similar in form. The Beaches people also seem to have been coastally adapted, for their sites are virtually unknown in Newfoundland's interior. No radiocarbon dates are available for this complex, but archaeologists think it is early in the Recent Indian period and may be ancestral to the more recent Little Passage complex.
This recently recognized culture includes a variety of small notched and stemmed projectile points, perhaps arrow points or harpoon endblades, in addition to knives and scrapers not vastly different from those of the Beaches complex. Sites or artifacts of the Little Passage complex have been found in coastal locations in Notre Dame, Bonavista, and Trinity bays as well as along Newfoundland's south coast. The people therefore seem to have been hunters of sea and land resources as were other Indian groups before them. Again, however, only a few scraps of food bone and no organic artifacts have been preserved so our recon- struction of their culture is extremely limited. Also, we really have no evidence of what became of these people, although it is tempting to speculate that they were the ancestors of the historic Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland.
The Beothuk Indians (from an undetermined date to 1829)
While this paper deals primarily with the prehistoric period, the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland should be mentioned even though archaeologists have found no Beothuk sites which predate European settlement. All of our information about the Beothuk comes from the period after European exploration and colonization.
The term Red Indian may derive from the Beothuk custom of painting themselves with red ochre. As they were among the first Canadian Indians to have been seen by Europeans, this practice may have resulted in all New World people being called Red Indians. The use of red ochre has a long history in Newfoundland, and its continued use into the historic period may be indicative of a connection between the Beothuks and the Maritime Archaic people. Unfortunately, all of the clues we have to the origins are about as vague as the red ochre example cited above. Although archaeologists have searched long and hard, no site containing native and European artifacts has yet been reported. Therefore we are unable to make the vital connection between the historic Beothuks and their prehistoric ancestors. We suspect that some of the Recent Indian cultures mentioned above, especially those from the northeast and south coasts, were ancestral to the Beothuks, but only further research, coupled with good fortune, will solve this problem.
Archaeologists have investigated a few Beothuk sites from the historic period, and we have some written records from the early seventeenth century and from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries that help us in understanding Beothuk culture. From these sources two things seem quite clear First, there were some profound changes in Beothuk culture between the time of earliest European contact and the nineteenth century; and second, the Beothuks were not, by choice at least, "the mysterious people of the interior of Newfoundland."
We believe that in prehistoric and very early contact times the Beothuks spent most of the year on the coast where they subsisted in much the same fashion as their Archaic predecessors. If there was an annual interior occupation (and the evidence for this is not strong), then it was probably brief and took place during the caribou migration, it is quite possible that the entire year was spent on the coast and that only small hunting parties left the village to intercept caribou. In November 1612, for example, John Guy visited a Beothuk camp in Trinity Bay where he observed, among other things, "Twelve Elk's hoofes, that were lately killed." So we have at least some evidence for a long coastal occupation, perhaps well into the caribou hunting season. Almost without exception, moreover, interior Beothuk sites along the Exploits River date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Earlier sites are rare. After European settlement along the coasts of Newfoundland, the Beothuk population shrunk rapidly until only a few remnant bands confined to the Exploits River remained. It is upon observations of these displaced refugees that most accounts of Beothuk culture are based.
Some changes associated with the arrival of the Europeans, such as the acquisition of iron, were readily accepted by and beneficial to the Beothuks. Others, however, were clearly detrimental. Europeans chose to live along the coast of Newfoundland in places where they had access to fishing grounds, seals, fresh water and protection from the elements all the things the Beothuks needed to survive. By depriving them of access to the coastal resources, which they may have enjoyed for many millennia, Europeans probably sealed the Beothuks' fate early in the historic period.
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.
