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• Recent archaeological discoveries by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources indicate that
Native Americans were in Virginia at least 16,000 years ago. These people continued to adapt to their changing
environment in the following years.
• Between 6000 and 2500 B.C., the people labeled "Dispersed Foragers," developed new technologies
that improved methods of hunting and food preparation.
• During the Sedentary Forager Period, (2500 B.C. to A.D. 900), the people, grouped in
small hamlets, settled in the river valleys. Technological advances included the invention of the bow and
arrow for hunting and fired-clay pottery for cooking and storing of food.
• From A.D. 900 until the English settlement of Jamestown, the native peoples evolved into a community
of farmers. Hunting and gathering supplemented food grown in meadows and fields.
• The scientific study of material evidence remaining from man's life and culture in past ages is called archaeology.
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