The Overview of Precontact History lesson plan is designed to introduce youth to the precontact history of the area we will be studying during the afterschool program – the Northeastern US.
Grade Level: 6-8
Objective: The goal of this activity is for learners to understand the time depth of Indigenous history in Eastern North America and how this history changed over time. The timeline will act as a visual tool to help learners comprehend the time depth of Indigenous history.
Learning Outcomes: Learners will understand the time depth of Indigenous history in the Northeastern US and how people in the past lived in this area.
STEM: math (linear scale)
Materials: brief written summary of each period for learners to refer to (see example below), roll of paper, scissors, pencils/pens/markers, rulers, measuring tape.
Time: 45 minutes
Overview: Indigenous people have been in Eastern North America for more than 10,000 years. One of the ways to learn about this past is through archaeology. Archaeologists have recognized several broad patterns of cultural change in Eastern North America. These are known as periods and include the Paleoindian (10,000-8,000 BC), Archaic (8000- 1500 BC), Transitional (1500-200 BC), and Woodland (200 BC-AD 1550) periods (see below). Each period is marked by changes in material culture, settlement patterns, and subsistence patterns. Archaeologists are able to determine the ages of these periods using geology (stratigraphy), radiometric dating (radiocarbon dating and other methods), and dendrochronology (tree-ring dating). It is important for the learners to know that descendants of the Indigenous people who made artifacts during the precontact period still live in the Northeastern US today. Many of these descendants are members of Indigenous Nations and Confederacies, such as the Onondaga Nation and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in New York.Time: 45 minutes
Vocabulary: Paleoindian period, Archaic period, Transitional period, Woodland period
Procedure: Tell learners that people have lived in Eastern North America for over 10,000 years. Ask them what they think life was like just 100 years ago; 1000 years ago. Then ask what they think life was like over 10,000 years ago. Ask learners what animals and plants they think were important to the Indigenous people during the different periods; and which animals and plants they think are less common today or even extinct.
After a brief presentation on the precontact period of the region (see below), have learners, in groups, map out the various periods on a single roll of paper 4 feet in length. Learners should pay attention to the different lengths of time for each period and plot the periods using a scale of 3 inches per 1000 years. Learners can then add any information on settlement, subsistence, and material culture that corresponds to the period. Be sure learners mark the time that Europeans arrived in the area and mark the present date to demonstrate the long history of Indigenous people in the Americas versus the arrival of Europeans.
Assessment activities: Each group will make a timeline with details of life during each major period of precontact history.
Wrap up: Ask learners to present their timelines, telling the group how far in inches the distance is between the arrival of Europeans and the current year; and how far in inches is it from the arrival of people in the Americas to the present date. What does this tell you about precontact history?
 | Fact: Dinosaurs and humans did not live at the same time. Humans lived on the land we call New York for over 10,000 years. Imagine what life was like before modern times? How did people get food, make shelters, make tools? The thousands of years before Europeans came to America are called the PRECONTACT Period. The science of archaeology helps tell the story of how people lived in our valleys and changed over time. |
 | This is the oldest evidence of people in our valleys. Archaeological excavations tell us that people hunted these giant mammals (mammoth and mastodon) with specialized stone tools. These spear points with a classic channel in the center are called Clovis fluted points and they only occur on Paleo sites. Radiocarbon dating helps archaeologists pinpoint the time range. |
 | By 8,000 BC, the giant mammals became extinct due to climate change, starvation, and disease. Smaller mammals, such as deer and bear, birds, and fish became the new food sources. By 4,000 BC the seasonal climate, wildlife, and waterways looked like what we see today. People moved their camps as the seasons changed. They hunted with new styles of points, fished with spears and nets, and collected wild plant foods. |
 | By 1500 BC there was a major changes in tools and raw materials. People switched from small to broad points. They began using stone that is not found in our valleys, such as jaspers and rhyolite. These are common in the Middle Atlantic valleys. They even experimented with cooking with stone bowls made from steatite, quarried from southern Pennsylvania to Georgia. Why the changes? Were people moving? Were new technology ideas being exchanged? Were they trading raw materials? All of these? |
 | By 200 BC, Indigenous communities continued to make changes in how they lived. They experimented with farming, eventually mastering maize, beans, and squash agriculture around AD 900. People settled year-round into villages, usually placed near their fields. They built longhouses for multiple families related through the female line. And they made clay cooking/storage pots with decorations impressed into the wet clay. |
 | By AD 900, archaeologists note that specific types of clay pottery sherds, decorated with corded designs, were present. Stone tool technology also changed with a shift away from points with notched bases towards triangular styles. Some points may have continued to be used on spears, while smaller ones were probably part of a bow-and-arrow technology. Radiocarbon dating has allowed archaeologists to more accurately date these communities. |
 | The Confederacy, or Hiawatha, Belt records when the five nations of the Haudenosaunee (the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk) came together to live in peace. |
 | The descendants of these people from thousands of years ago still live in our valleys and still carry out their traditional ways of life. |