page_title: Prehistory of Ohio
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Prehistory of Ohio / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Ohio, showing the Erie Plain, Portage Escarpment and Marshall Escarpment (in red), and the Appalachian Plateau.
context_page_description: Prehistory of Ohio provides an overview of the activities that occurred prior to Ohio's recorded history. The ancient hunters, Paleo-Indians, descended from humans that crossed the Bering Strait. There is evidence of Paleo-Indians in Ohio, who were hunter-gatherers that ranged widely over land to hunt large game. For instance, mastodon bones were found at the Burning Tree Mastodon site that showed that it had been butchered. Clovis points have been found that indicate interaction with other groups and hunted large game. The Paleo Crossing Site and Nobles Pond Site provide evidence that groups interacted with one another. The Paleo-Indian's diet included fish, small game, and nuts and berries that gathered. They lived in simple shelters made of wood and bark or hides. Canoes were created by digging out trees with granite axes.
  The weather warmed and forest grew more dense with next period of the Archaic people. Although they were also hunter-gatherers, they did not travel as far for food and began to live longer periods of time in one place. They dug pits to store food and built studier lodging. Tools, like spear-throwers, were more sophisticated.
context_section_description: Humans and animals migrated over the Bering Strait to populate the Americas. They then traveled over hundreds of years into what is now the United States. The animals that came from Asia include mastodons, mammoths, elk, bison, caribous, and muskox. Some of the earliest humans may have migrated through Canada to the Great Lakes region and then south from there, according to some archaeologists. During the time of the migration and until about 7,500 years ago, the Great Lakes extended south as far as Allen County, Ohio.
  The glaciers left bogs and small lakes and the flat Erie Plain along the Lake Erie shore. The Glaciated Allegheny Plateau southeast of Cleveland included steep Appalachian Mountains foothills that thousands of years ago had a dense Beech-Maple forest. By the time that Europeans made contact with Native Americans, the Erie Plain had wide river estuaries, coastal marshes, small prairies, and a mixed oak forest. The Central Till Plain had areas of native beech-oak-hickory woodland and "rolling terrain of glacial soils".
caption: The Erie Plain in Ohio, defined by Lake Erie and the Portage and Marshall Escarpments (in red). The Glaciated Allegheny Plateau in southern Ohio.
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