—As the glaciers began to retreat northward the land gradually, over thousands of years, began to support plants and animals that could provide a habitat for the first Paleo-Indians about 10,500 year ago.

The first of these people were mostly summer visitors who retreated south during the winters. Paleo campsites have been found as close as Glastonbury on the Connecticut River. There have been no skeletal remains found of the Paleo people, but their stone implements have survived in a number of forms. Flint was imported from areas in New York state since Connecticut has no outcroppings of this much prized stone. Fluted spear points are the hallmark of the Paleo period stone work and averaged between 1 ¾ to 3 ¾ inches long. The Paleo people hunted in bands of maybe as many as 30 individuals and used their spears mostly for small game, although small, immature mastodons and mammoths might have been taken if they could be separated from the herd.

Later, the Early Archaic Indians began to predominate the southern New England region from about 7000 to 5000 years ago. The climate and vegetation had changed and different animals were present for hunting. One of the primary targets for the Early Archaic Indians was caribou. Caribou required a longer shot and a spear launching rig called an Atlatl stick

was developed to hunt these smaller, faster animals. Spear points were made thinner and narrower and did not have the fluted shape of the Paleos. The Early Archaics had only one domesticated animal, the wolf dog, and it was used to assist in hunting. Dugout canoes were used extensively for traveling between camps and hunting areas.

The Late Archaic Indians from about 5000 years ago to 300A.D. replaced the Early Archaics.
These family oriented, peace loving people came from the Great Lakes area in small bands. They lived in more or less permanent settlements consisting of large, 30 to 60 feet in diameter bark covered homes. The squaws worked in the homes with much more sophisticated tools for fire making and cooking, including the finest stone bowls known in Indian culture. Quarry sites for soapstone and steatite used in bowl making are found as close as Winsted. Many new tools were developed such as mortar and pestle for grinding nuts and seeds, pipes, bone implements, fishing equipment, woodworking tools, and drills. The Late Archaics were the first to use the bow and arrow and it became a very important hunting tool. The arrow point became more common and was generally finer, narrower, and thinner than the earlier spear points. Spiritual awareness is evidenced by pendants, human effigy masks, magic stones, and gorgets found in burial sites.

The Adena Culture began to infiltrate from the Ohio river valley around 500 B.C. or about 2500 years ago. They brought two important new elements to the way of life of Connecticut Indians. First was the ability to make clay pots and utensils and the second was maize that provided a completely new food source. Gradually the Adena Culture gave way to a new way of life that revolved around the new skill of ceramic, clay material and agriculture.

The Ceramic-Woodland era in Indian history is considered to be from about 300 A.D. to about 1700 A.D. These people are considered part of the Algonquin nation. Those in the area of Salisbury were of the Mahican group of the Algonquin nation. The men cleared the forest for fields to grow maize and large villages grew up around the fields. Fertilizer was used in the form of herring fish and sometimes other water creatures to improve the growth of the maize. Over the years the maize was grown and improved from small, perhaps 3 inches long to ears of up to about 9 inches. Kidney beans, squash, pumpkins, and tobacco were grown along with the corn. Food was stored for the winter months. Along with this new life style came the necessity to protect the fields and stored food from other villages. Thus the men, over time, became warriors and practiced combat in games and training.

Houses were usually domed wigwams covered with reed or bulrush strips that were sewn together or deerskin. In the winter several families would occupy longhouses that were often covered with bark pieces that were shingled to provide weather protection. The boats of the Indians around Salisbury were probably dugout canoes. Birch bark canoes were generally used farther north in New England where paper (white) birch is larger and more numerous.

The Historic Period is considered to be from about 1620, when the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts to the end of the Native American culture in New England. “The sudden influx of European traders and explorers at the beginning of the seventeenth century marked the beginning of the Historic Period.

Although their brief visits to the New England shores were occasionally clouded by cheating, skirmishes, and ambushes and kidnappings, the bulk of the Algonquin people were little influenced-or even aware of- those foreign contacts. When the Pilgrims gained their Plymouth toehold in 1620, any misgivings between the two races faded from memory. Those high-minded Englishmen brought with them a deep and sincere friendship for the natives that endured for over fifty years. Well before the Puritan settlement, the Ceramic-Woodland culture had fallen on hard times. Their early creative thrust had been blunted by centuries of bloody warfare. Then the great plague of 1616-1617 riddled much of the remaining Indian population. There were those tribes with scarcely enough living to bury the dead. Old enemies fell on their weakened neighbors. The tribes of New England were well on the trail of self-destruction.”(The New England Indians. C. Keith Wilbur. 1978)
Many Native American words remain today that are familiar to people in Salisbury.
Appalachian—people of the other side.
Connecticut–at the long estuary.
Housatonic–over the mountain.
Massachusetts—people of the great hill country
Taconic—wilderness.
Weataug—at the village.

The forgoing description of Native Americans in New England could have applied to peoples occupying what is now Salisbury. Not until later years after the formation of the town by the Dutch and English could detailed descriptions of Indians in our area be recorded.

In Salisbury records of the Native American habitation start around 1720 when the first Dutch settlers came from Livingston Manor in New York state. There are records of encampments at Indian Cave near the ski jump, on the shore of Lakeville Lake across from St. Mary’s church, a number of sites along the Housatonic, the largest of which was Weataug north of Dutchers Bridge. Records show that in 1720 there 200 to 300 Indians at the Weataug village. In 1740 there were 70 wigwams there. Although the natives lived quite peacefully with the first of the settlers, the Europeans soon were obtaining land from them through nefarious deals that the aboriginal mind could not comprehend.

In time the natives either migrated, some north to Stockbridge where there was a relative large group of Christian Indians, south to a large group in Kent, or continued on in a gradually degraded state until they were extinct. There is no record of a shot being fired at a Native American in the town of Salisbury.

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