People on the Move The search for food, as well as materials for tools and clothing, defined a way of life for our ancestors 11,000 years ago.  They made use of all of the food resources they could find: large animals such as caribou, smaller animals, wild plants, and fish.  These resources were widely scattered and could only be found at certain times of the year, and so the people did not remain in a single location for any length of time.  Instead, they traveled more or less constantly, stopping for days or weeks wherever food was plentiful. Ancient Sites in New England Archaeologists have discovered a number of sites throughout New England that have evidence of human activity 9,000 or more years ago. Most of these are camps for temporary habitation or short-term hunting, providing evidence that people frequently moved about the landscape. This way of life meant that people did not live in cities or even villages, nor did they maintain a permanent site as “home.”  They traveled hundreds of miles a year, taking their few possessions with them.  The most practical group size was large enough to hunt cooperatively but small enough to be self-sufficient and mobile, probably an extended family of brothers, wives, children and parents totaling 10 to 25 people.  The human population in this part of the world at that time was low, and the territory that a few dozen groups like this shared may have included hundreds or even thousands of square miles.  At times several groups probably gathered together to hunt or fish, to exchange information, goods, and stories, to celebrate, to make friends, to resolve conflicts and to meet potential spouses.  Links were formed among the groups through these activities and through family ties. One other reason people may have traveled over a large territory was to obtain materials that were not available locally, such as fine-grained stone used for knives, spearpoints, and other tools.  High-quality stone has been found in sites hundreds of miles away from where it was quarried, leading archaeologists to believe that people either traveled extensively or traded with others in order to obtain it.