Women gathering nuts and berries. There is no evidence that they planted orchards, but early colonists noted an abundance of fruit and nut trees in areas occupied by Native Americans. Approximately 7,000 years ago the rise in sea level began to slow. This allowed estuaries all over the world to grow, including the drowned river bed of the Susquehanna River known as the Chesapeake Bay. As the Chesapeake expanded north and west, the Rhode River sub-estuary was formed.
Estuaries are extremely productive ecosystems.
These plants become food for small animals which in turn become food for larger animals. It is this abundant food resource which brought the earliest human inhabitants to the Chesapeake Bay area. They also gathered berries, nuts, and seeds. Over the next 2,000 years settlement patterns changed. At first, small groups moved between the forest and the estuary with periodic assembly at a large site.