Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 March 8

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March 8

I have a question about indigenous people in Canada

Are there any artifacts from the Inuit, First Nations or any indigenous people of Canada that is at least 1,000 years old or much older like for the same time as when the ancient Egyptians where around? 2001:569:58BE:D400:CCF3:1163:6B4:C140 (talk) 00:34, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Clovis points are over 10,000 years old, though they're not unique to Canada... AnonMoos (talk) 00:42, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a good deal of relevant information in, and links from, the article Settlement of the Americas. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.55.125 (talk) 01:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not always possible to establish a straightforward correspondence between present-day indigenous peoples and the identifiable prehistorical cultures that produced artifacts. The present-day Inuit are genetically an admixture of different East Asian migrant waves (see Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas § Autosomal DNA), but can be traced as a people to the Thule. The earliest archeological sites associated with the Thule are from the Old Bering Sea culture, which began to peak around 200 BCE and produced various artifacts.  --Lambiam 08:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

However, according to the articles you linked to, the earlier phases of this culture occurred in what is now the Russian far east and Alaska, not Canada. AnonMoos (talk) 08:44, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Please look at this article "History of Indigenous Art in Canada" [1] from the Canadian Encyclopedia, from which the following quote is taken: "To date, however, the oldest surviving artworks (excluding finely crafted, aesthetically significant stone tools) are datable to no earlier than 5,000 years ago." But there are much older artifacts: this article [2] from the CBC mentions that an arrowhead estimated between 6,000 and 7,500 years of age was found in Williams Lake, British Columbia in 2019. Even older objects have been discovered underwater in the Haida Gwaii region [3]. Xuxl (talk) 15:33, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

See also New Brunswick - Campsite dating back 12,000 years unearthed by Route 8. Alansplodge (talk) 15:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Classic Clovis points are known to date from more than 10,000 years ago, even if some individual finds can't be dated from the context in which they were found. AnonMoos (talk) 16:35, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• So, the OP asked "1,000 years old or much older like for the same time as when the ancient Egyptians where(sic) around" That's a pretty different time frame; 1000 years ago is closer to modern times than to the time period we typically think of as Ancient Egypt, which generally came to an end following the loss of local independent rule of Egypt some 2000 years before that with the fall of the New Kingdom of Egypt in the 11th century BCE. In Canada itself, there would be dozens of different, distinct identified cultures over that time period, many with non-overlapping histories in both time and geography. Timeline of First Nations history would be a good place to learn about many of these cultures. --Jayron32 20:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• Heck, there are European artifacts in Canada that are a thousand years old. See L'Anse aux Meadows. Matt Deres (talk) 22:15, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

  I interpreted the question not as "How old are artifacts found in Canada?", but as "How old are the earliest artifacts that can be ascribed to any current indigenous people of Canada?"  --Lambiam 22:57, 8 March 2023 (UTC)