PREHISTORIC PEOPLE OF
THE MIAMI VALLEY
People have lived in the Miami Valley for thousands of years, long before European and American settlers were here. They called this area home and left evidence of their existence in the form of stone tools, burial mounds, and other archaeological artifacts and features.
Paleoindians (13,000 - 7,000 B.C.)
About 15,000 to 9,000 years ago, a group we refer to as Paleoindians roamed Ohio. They were descended from people who crossed the Bering Strait during the final Ice Age. Paleoindians lived in small nomadic bands that hunted and foraged for food and made tools of stone.
At least two Paleoindian fluted points have been found in Miami County—one along the Stillwater River near Pleasant Hill, and one near upper Indian Creek south of Alcony. Paleoindians also made stone scrapers, wedges, hammerstones, and other tools used for chopping and smashing.
American Indian Life in the Paleo-Indian Period by Susan A. Walton, 2003
Archaic Period (8,000 - 800 B.C.)
The Archaic people were also hunter-gatherers but more sedentary, with increasing populations and more permanent settlements. The Archaic people also made stone tools, including spear points, knives, scraping tools, and groundstone tools like axes, celts, adzes, and grinding stones. Their ceremonial sites were more elaborate and they buried their dead in gravel hills. In Ohio, Late Archaic cultures were also the first to produce pottery and grow crops in small gardens.
A Paleoindian fluted point
American Indian Life in the Archaic Period by Susan A. Walton, 2003