Environmental Changes in N’dakinna » Abenaki Arts & Education Center

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The following article provides additional interpretation for the special exhibition “Deep Roots, Strong Branches.” Curated by Vera Sheehan.

Image above: Detail from Landforms poster, Abenaki Arts & Education Center (Abenaki Arts & Education Center, 2024)

After living in the same region for thousands of years, Abenaki people were experts in using renewable resources and sustainable practices.

The “Abenaki History Timeline” poster and the “Summary of 12,000 Years of Abenaki History” provide clues about the daily lives of Abenaki ancestors. Some 11,500 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age in North America, resources were limited, so people in this region lived in small family groups. They used stones to make tools for hunting large game animals and sea mammals that provided food, animal bones and skins to build temporary shelters, and skins to make warm clothing. Slowly, over thousands of years, the tundra warmed and the forests and wildlife now present in Vermont began to emerge. Human inhabitants observed these changes and innovated new ways of life as different natural resources became available.

By 3,000 years ago, hunting and gathering yielded a varied diet of meats, fish, edible plants, fruits, and nuts. Settlement patterns changed as families began to move from high terraces overlooking waterways into valleys. As food sources and materials for clothing and shelter became more readily available, Abenaki people were able to live in larger extended families. New techniques and cultural practices were developed, such as tooling copper nuggets into knives and ornaments and making pottery vessels for cooking and storage (Haviland & Power, 1994). Expanding agricultural practices enabled larger villages to flourish. (Read more about agriculture under Supporting Question 2.)

Ceremonial burial sites and petroglyphs suggest that religious beliefs were present as long ago as 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Archeological evidence also suggests that Abenaki people moved beyond a mere subsistence economy of hunting and gathering into a robust economy with surplus items they could trade for items they might not have. Ramah Bay chert (a type of rock from Newfoundland and Labrador), sea shells, and seeds found at archeological sites in Vermont suggest pre-Columbian trade routes that extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Labrador, the Great Lakes, the Caribbean, and beyond. For example, corn (which originated as the teosinte plant in Mesoamerica), was planted along the Connecticut River Intervales (flood plains). (Haviland & Power, 1994)

For More Information

Books:

Wiseman, F. M. The Voice of the Dawn: An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation. University Press of New England, 2001.

Haviland, William A. and Marjory W. Power. The Original Vermonters: Native Inhabitants, Past and Present. (Revised and Expanded Edition). University Press of New England.

Supported in part by Vermont Humanities and the New England Foundation for the Arts‘ Cultural Sustainability program, made possible by the Wallace Foundation.

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