Why do people move? How does geography affect settlement?
Show that you know about the Asian migration theory, naming the routes and indicating them on a map.
Name different Indigenous groups (language groups, nations, etc.) in the present-day territory of Quebec.
Explain the ways of life and social structures of Indigenous groups, by mapping and categorizing artifacts belonging to those different groups.
Image source from animation introduction by SFU Museum, site no longer existant, available without animation via https://web.archive.org/
For notions of geography affecting settlement --> Where in this image would they likely settle? What might stop them? Etc.
For bigger questions like, Why do people move? --> What in this image would have attracted people? What might they have “followed” to provide for their families and to live a better life?
"According to the Asian migration hypothesis ... thousands of years ago, when the climate facilitated access to northwestern America, people from Asia tracking game crossed land bridges freed from ice to reach the central and southern parts of the continent. (QEP, page 19). Various waves of migration have been documented, and exact dates for the earliest migrations range from 10,000 B.C. to as much as 30,000 years. As new archeological sites are studied, as information about what routes were open at the time is revised, alternative migration theories using other access points are proposed.
The crossing to America via the Bering Strait, RECITUS, License: Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA)
During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 21,000 years ago, global sea level was approximately 120 m (400 ft) lower than today. The Bering Land Bridge existed as a vast tundra plain connecting Asia and North America. (Source and animations)
Learn more about the Bering Land Bridge theory in contexts of other migrations. View teacher Celeste Caso's video on the subject on Youtube at around the 4 minute point.
"Most archaeologists think the first Americans arrived by boat. Now, they're beginning to prove it." (View source video by Science Magazine here)
It was not really a bridge! The Bering Strait area - what is now as narrow as 80 kilometres of water between the northern coasts of Russia and Alaska - was at one time very dry and significantly larger. Since we know that sea levels were once much lower than now, we can conclude that that area was once an open plain. Archeologists have even found evidence of people living and travelling near the area, and some of these sites were established well before 10 thousand years ago. We also know that the area opened and closed more than once to travel and even settlement, as different climate changes occurred. But much like crossing a bridge, the various versions of the theory still postulate (suggest) that at certain points in time, people slowly moved across this low area of land, possibly even settled there for a time, and that eventually they arrived on the coasts and later on the plains of what is now North America and even South America.
Beringia about 18,000 years ago. (Image credit: Bond, J.D. 2019. Paleodrainage map of Beringia. Yukon Geological Survey, Open File 2019-2) (View original large source files)
But why would people have migrated towards the south and east in the first place? Why leave what are now northern Asia and the Beringia areas at all? One idea stems from the idea that the ice sheets were constantly changing, and the weather was slowly becoming colder or hotter. Over time people moved to more habitable climates, gradually changing position around the globe.
Similarly, these changes might have also influenced wildlife: herds of caribou, bison, and in those times even groups of large woolly mammoths or saber-toothed wildcats. All of these animals might have moved slowly from one region to another, because of their changing environment and landscape. And one idea is that just as slowly people may have followed these groups of animals into their new territories. A related idea suggests that humans themselves contributed to the animals' movement, through overhunting. Indeed, many of the larger species just mentioned went extinct during these time periods. As animal numbers dwindled in one area, people might have had to move on to another area to find food.
It should be noted that many Indigenous cultures do not require the inclusion of this migration theory from the northwest to explain their existence in what is now Canada. Even while recognizing notions of shifting hunting grounds and of changing of territory, for food or other reasons, “Indigenous people throughout the Western Hemisphere talk [instead] of their origins in oral histories, stories, and myths that link them [more] intimately to the places they inhabit. The land, the stories commonly assert, was made for “the people,” and they [the people] were made to inhabit the land. Every group has an origin story […] And these stories are invoked by Aboriginal peoples as sufficient to their needs as regards history.” (Source)
Another related consideration might be to question why non-Indigenous people tend not to include their own migration experiences, from Africa to Europe let's say, as part of their own historical textbooks and records. While the "expansion of the modern human population is thought to have begun 45,000 years ago, and it may have actually taken 15,000–20,000 years for Europe to be colonized. (Source)
Texts above by Paul Rombough at LEARN, based on Quebec History program requirements and recent documents curated for this section.
"Perhaps you head eastward, to places no one has ever been." Visit the arger Illustration by Mark Garrison at A Sunken Bridge the Size of a Continent.
"At the beginning of the world, the Gwitchin culture-hero, Ch'itahuukaii, the Traveller, and the Tutchone hero Soh Jhee or Asuya (Beaver Man), journeyed across the land to change the animals from giants and man-eaters to the familiar species of today." Source: Beaver Shrinkage photo of painting posted by Flickr user Travis under by-nc.
Celebration Circle Panels By Randy Thomas with Roy Thomas at Prince Arthur's Landing, Marina Park in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Photo by Ryan Hodnett under by-sa (See also images at firstnationsdrum.com)
“Canadian and Indigenous Art: From Time Immemorial to 1967,” installation view, June 2017, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Photo: NGC via An Indigenous Woman’s View of the National Gallery of Canada
Consider the video at right. It was produced based on the above texts using NotebookLM and will be edited to include key documents you should be able to contextualize, explain, and sometimes locate.
Did you learn anything new? What do you think are the most important facts and points of view to remember?