Historic Timeline

As glaciers withdrew, the earliest peoples left fluted chert spear points, hallmarks of Paleo-Indian technology, dating to roughly 11,000–10,500 years ago in southern Ontario. Early environments were tundra-like, gradually warming into forests that supported sustained habitation and wide seasonal travel. Archaeologists recognize these first millennia by distinctive fluted points, scrapers, and other tools, with sites often situated along former glacial shorelines now altered by changing lake levels. Through the Archaic millennia, lifeways remained primarily hunter-gatherer, with expanding toolkits (including ground stone) and a pattern of seasonal movement tied to fish runs and game. Permanent pottery and smoking pipes are largely absent until later horizons, helping archaeologists distinguish these early occupations from subsequent periods.

Early Woodland (c. 1000 BCE – 200 BCE)

Early Woodland communities began experimenting with pottery and small-scale horticulture while establishing more regular seasonal camps and semi-permanent villages. Early Woodland ceramics mark a technological shift that set the stage for later regional styles. Among these developing practices, the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash, known as the Three Sisters, emerged as one of the first forms of permaculture in the region. This interdependent planting method reflects an early ecological knowledge system: corn provided support for beans to climb, beans enriched the soil through nitrogen fixation, and squash covered the ground to retain moisture and reduce weeds.
 

Middle Woodland (c. 600 BCE – 700 CE)
 

Around the Bay of Quinte, the Middle Woodland is closely associated with the Point Peninsula cultural tradition. Ceramic pottery appears alongside a wide range of stone tools, scrapers, axes, harpoons, and projectile points. This era also saw the construction of unusual burnt-stone and annular mound features in the County and across the lake in upstate NY, earthworks linked to complex social and ceremonial practices that continue to be studied. Local records from the 19th and 20th centuries describe dozens to roughly one hundred such mounds along the Bay of Quinte, particularly between Massassauga Point and Rednersville; modern archaeological syntheses confirm their Middle Woodland age and the ongoing debate about their functions.

Late Woodland (c. 700–1650 CE)
 

By the Late Woodland period, larger, fortified villages and widespread agriculture, especially the “Three Sisters” of corn, beans, and squash, supported longer-term settlement and population growth. These communities are ancestral to later Iroquoian-speaking nations in the region. Before the sustained European presence, the region formed part of the homelands and seasonal rounds of Iroquoian-speaking peoples, including the Wendat (Huron) and later the Haudenosaunee nations. Early French observers like Samuel de Champlain passed through in 1615; by then, epidemic disease and conflict had already disrupted settlement patterns, and some areas along the north shore were seasonally underused.

In the late 1600s, Cayuga (Haudenosaunee) villages are recorded near present-day Consecon and Carrying Place (c. 1665–1687). By the late 17th century, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg communities returned to the area, and the British would later negotiate land agreements with them as Loyalist settlement expanded. After the American Revolution (1780s), the Bay of Quinte became the new homeland of the Kenhtè:ke Kanyen’kehà:ka (Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte). Loyalist allies resettled here; prominent Mohawk leader Molly Brant also received lands nearby at Kingston under Crown patronage.

At Carrying Place, the historic portage between the Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario, a council on September 23, 1787, brought Mississauga leaders and British Crown representatives together to negotiate land for Loyalist settlement. Local memory and the cairn at the Carrying Place intersection commemorate this as the “Gunshot Treaty,” referring to a boundary description said to extend “as far as a gunshot could be heard on a clear day.” Historians note that records from the 1787 council are sparse and the boundaries left vague. A surviving deed from that year later, tied to the Toronto Purchase, contains no definitive land base, fueling long-running disputes. Subsequent Crown interpretations expanded settlement far beyond what many Mississauga leaders understood as a relationship to share lands and continue harvesting rights. These ambiguities helped spur later specific claims and modern agreements. Today, the Carrying Place cairn, ongoing scholarship, and municipal discussions about recognition invite residents and visitors to learn from this history and support respectful relationships with First Nations whose rights and responsibilities in this territory endure.

The Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg were the last Indigenous Nation to maintain a settlement in Prince Edward County. Their final community, located on Grape Island in the Bay of Quinte just east of Massassauga Point, remained active until the early 1820s. After the 1818 Rice Lake Purchase and other land cessions, families relocated to the Kawartha Lakes region. Descendants from Grape Island are the people of Alderville First Nation, carrying on Michi Saagiig traditions and stewardship. 

Archaeology across Prince Edward County continues to reveal a deep and longstanding Indigenous presence. Local heritage sources report as many as 500 village sites identified through modern remote sensing. Traces of fire pits, stockades, corn storage pits, ossuaries, and fish and eel processing areas point to sophisticated seasonal food economies tied to creeks, bays, and spawning runs. County and provincial studies, along with Ontario Archaeological Society publications, also document rare Middle Woodland burnt-stone mounds and related sites, underscoring their significance. Many features are on private land and are cared for by landowners and volunteers. Where appropriate, The County works within provincial standards to assess, protect, and interpret these sites.

According to the 2021 Census, approximately 790 people in Prince Edward County identified as Indigenous, representing about 3.1% of the local population, slightly above the provincial average for Ontario. This presence includes descendants of the region’s original peoples as well as Métis community members and a small number of residents of Inuit origin.

Today, Indigenous people continue to live, work, learn, and create across the County, reflecting the diversity of cultures and experiences that call this place home. Their relationships with the land and waters remain vital. As the community grows and plans thoughtfully for the future, responsible land use and heritage stewardship can help reveal more stories of the past, deepening public understanding of the original peoples of this territory and strengthening respectful relationships in the present.