Paleo Indians and Native Americans
New Jersey was first settled by Paleo Indians after the Wisconsin Glacier melted. Around 11,000 BC they had settled in southern New Jersey. By 10,500 BC they settled in northern areas. Paleo Indians were hunter gathers. They moved as soon as game became scarce.
Later other Native Americans settled in New Jersey. Around the year 1000, Native American group known as the Lenape, later called Delaware Indians settled in New Jersey. They came from the Mississippi valley. The Lenape were loosely organized groups who migrated seasonally in the beginning. With the advent of the bow and arrow and pottery around the year 1000, extended family groups began to stay in areas longer. They practiced small-scale agriculture (companion planting), such as growing corn and pole beans together and squash. They were hunting and gathering, hunting with bow and arrow, using deadfall traps, and snares. They also gathered nuts in the autumn such as acorns hickory nuts, walnuts, butternuts, beech nuts and chestnuts. The Native Americans and Paleo Indians fished in all rivers and stream using nets and fish hooks and by hand. They also fished in the region surrounding the Delaware River, the lower Hudson River, and western Long Island Sound. Their Algonquian language lends itself to many place names throughout the state.
Read more about this topic: History Of New Jersey
Famous quotes containing the words indians, native and/or americans:
“The Indians feel that each stage is crucial and that the child should be allowed to dwell in each for the appropriate period of time so that every aspect of his being can evolve, just as a plant evolves in the proper time and sequence of the seasons. Otherwise, the child never has a chance to master himself in any one phase of his life.”
—Alan Quetone (20th century)
“In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes profusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“The Americans ... have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moments reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (18741965)