THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 33 



found the lands that would provide them with food, water and salt. 

 Man wanted the animals for food and followed their trails, found 

 the country without human occupants and took possession. 



New York State lies in a portion of the thermal belt surrounding 

 the globe that supports the most energetic peoples of the world. This 

 may be due to the reaction of the wide variations between summer 

 and winter temperatures upon the physical constitutions of the 

 occupants. In winter there are portions of New York as cold as 

 portions of Alaska or Labrador; in summer the temperature equals 

 that of the Mediterranean countries and even northern Africa. 

 Coincident with the existence of human energy is intellectual activity 

 in this isothermal belt. What is true today of the white races 

 occupying this zone was also true in aboriginal times. The Indians 

 of this region at the time of the discovery were the most able 

 mentally in all North America. Not only did they possess keen 

 minds but they were able in many ways to match with the white 

 invaders. This has so far been true that today New York State 

 has within its borders more than six thousand Indians, most of them 

 branches of the Iroquois, and living on tracts of land that they 

 have held from very early. time. Notwithstanding the severe tem- 

 perature of winter here, many of the Indians of this area wore 

 what would now be considered scanty clothing and frequently parts 

 of their bodies were bared to the elements. One Jesuit father living 

 among the Mohawk people states that he saw one warrior braving 

 a storm with the upper part of his body bare and only protected by 

 a wild cat skin through which he had thrust his arm, holding it on 

 the windward side. The bark houses, likewise, were cold and 

 unheated in winter, save for the floor fires that were used for cook- 

 ing rather than for heat. Instead of discouraging settlement by 

 human beings the cold winters had the contrary effect, for to 

 acclimated individuals and groups there was a certain zest in battling 

 with the cold, not enjoyed by the people farther south. The summers 

 and autumns were warm, on the other hand, and provided for the 

 food that was most sustaining to life. 



The coming of the white settlers did much to modify the landscape. 

 The first colonists, however, relied upon the same natural resources 

 as did the Indians, using native plants and forest game for food, 

 and wearing buckskin and furs when they did not have cloth in 

 abundance. The colonists, coming from Europe and from another 

 cultural horizon, understood certain facts that the native Indians 

 did not and soon made use of these facts to enlarge their resources. 



