Vol. 19, No. 15

Dec. 16, 1999

At the brink of 2000,
consider Delmarva 1,000 years ago

As the year rolls over to 2000, it's interesting to consider what the Delmarva region was like 1,000 years ago. Keith Doms, anthropology lab coordinator at UD, offers some insight into the region's inhabitants, climate and plant and animal life. Long before European settlers made the tristate area their home, the Lenape Indians walked among the dense forests and clean rivers of the Delmarva Peninsula, which they shared with the Tockwoghs and the Nanticokes, Doms said. "To the north, beyond the water gap, the Lenape lived in villages and maintained gardens where they grew corn, beans and squash," he said. "There were other farming groups in the Susquehanna valley and in tidewater Virginia, but the Lenape tribe here on the Delmarva Peninsula maintained its semi-nomadic hunter and gatherer way of life, traveling in small extended family groups." The Lenape moved about the landscape on foot and by canoe to take advantage of the seasonal availability of different food and resources. They would come together periodically to exploit particularly plentiful resources such as fish runs. Their simple houses consisted of low 3- to 4-foot-high domes, about 12 to 15 feet in diameter, and made of bent saplings and branches tied together. This dome was covered with bark and reed mats. The floors were often dug down another foot or two to increase headroom. Pits were dug near the houses to store excess food. The Lenape hunted with snares, bows and arrows and nets. Stone tools were made from quartz, quartzite, jasper and chert, Doms said. "Most of these were found in the cobbles of rivers and streams, while jasper could also be quarried around Iron Hill," he said. "Stone axes allowed them to make dug-out canoes and to strip the bark off of trees but not cut down the mature hardwoods." The forest in this area teemed with life, he said. Squirrels, raccoons, opossums and turkeys were abundant. While deer were less numerous than today, further north, small herds of bison and elk grazed. Predators included wolves, black bears, cougars, gray fox and bobcats. Hawks and eagles plied the skies. "For the most part, the rivers were deeper, narrower and cleaner," Doms said. "In the fall eels gathered in large groups as they began to swim downstream to the sea. The bottom of the bays and marshes were almost lined with oysters and other shell fish." The climate was similar to modern day, but probably a little wetter, he said. Most of this region was a dense forest with oak, hickory, chestnut and walnut trees predominating on all of the high ground. While gum, sycamore, sassafras and pine thrived in the lower marshy areas. Bald cypress trees were found in the lower portion of Delmarva, as there are today. "During the summer the upper canopy was so dense that little sunlight penetrated to the forest floor except where one of the mighty trees had died or fallen," Doms said. "Early colonists say that you could drive a wagon from one end of the peninsula to the other without hitting a tree or ever seeing the sun." -Laura Overturf