Paleo-Indian Period

Most of the history of Manitoba comes from before the written record, almost 12,000 years of occupation can be traced in artifact deposits, particularly those found within the Turtle Mountain region and Southwestern Manitoba.  This area was the first to break free of the ice sheets that had covered the continent for millennia, and to this new area came ice age hunters following the migrating animal herds.  The first people to settle in the area were stone-age hunters that survived by subsisting of the large game animals that lived in numerous groups on the open plains.  The evidence for these people and their way of life comes in the form of large points, suitable and clearly designed to hunt the large game.

 

Examples of these technologies are the large lanceolate points from the Agate Basin or the stemmed Scottsbluff traditions.  These long leaf shaped points could have been used as spear points or the smaller ones on an atlatl.  Points similar to the ones found in Manitoba have also been found in Saskatchewan, Alberta and parts of the United States as far south as Texas.