First People Hundreds of years ago, before Europeans came to North America, there were people living in the place we call Michigan. They were here during the time when mastadons roamed the land. Even though the early people did not leave writing as we know it today, their petroglyphs and early mines tell us something about their lives.
Glaciers are large areas of ice that cover the land.
We still have glaciers near the South Pole and in parts of Alaska. There were no humans in the place we now call Michigan. People who study history tell us that the ice began to melt as the climate became warmer, about 12,000 years ago. We know that there were once mastadons, huge animals that looked something like elephants. The mastadons are gone now but we know about them from finding their bones.