8000 to 6000 BCE: Early Archaic Period
As the climate became warmer and drier, a denser pine forest replaced the earlier open spruce parkland, and enormous glacial lakes expanded and drained through new outlets. In response to these dramatic environmental changes, the Early Archaic people adapted.
More widely scattered and wide-ranging than their Palaeo-Indian ancestors, these small semi-nomadic groups subsisted primarily on large and small game. Highly mobile, they moved frequently, briefly occupying small campsites along the shorelines of ancient lakes and waterways.
Two such campsites were recently discovered on Bark Lake, about 30 kilometres west of Round Lake. These sites, together with the nearby Late Palaeo-Indian site also found at Bark Lake, tend to suggest some 2500 years of continuous early occupation in the area.
