The retelling of the first accounts of European contact seemingly always mark the beginning of a “civilized” America while portraying the Native population as having been rescued from a “savage” lifestyle. The lack of formal evidence from the Aboriginal side of the story, in the form of letters and writings, makes it hard to deicer what the truth actually is which leads us to believe that the evidence that does exist, is the truth. In the quest for the big picture, Neil Salisbury, Ramsay Cook and Cornelius Jaenen have analyzed different types of evidence for the Aboriginal side to reveal that the Native population was in fact flourishing well before contact. Salisbury uses archeological evidence to show long standing exchange networks and social
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If we use the three articles mentioned within a timeline, Salisbury’s article would highlight Native achievements before contact including how the many Natives populations interacted with each other using Salisbury’s term of exchange. Salisbury uses the term exchange because he finds archeological evidence in his research that reveals that there was, “exchange across community lines of marriage partners, resources, labor, ideas, techniques and religious practices” (p. 20). The evidence that Salisbury uses to support this idea is through archaeological evidence found in burial sites all over North America. The skeletons and resources buried in these sites reveal a class structure that is revealed by the amount of resources that are buried with the person, and trade of resources is revealed through the place of origin of the resources found within these sites. Salisbury says that there were many resources that were found a great distance away from their place of origin which shows that Native peoples did in fact have an understanding of trade well before the arrival of the Europeans which is also mentioned in Cook’s article. Cook’s article features Cartier’s Voyages, a primary source
If we use the three articles mentioned within a timeline, Salisbury’s article would highlight Native achievements before contact including how the many Natives populations interacted with each other using Salisbury’s term of exchange. Salisbury uses the term exchange because he finds archeological evidence in his research that reveals that there was, “exchange across community lines of marriage partners, resources, labor, ideas, techniques and religious practices” (p. 20). The evidence that Salisbury uses to support this idea is through archaeological evidence found in burial sites all over North America. The skeletons and resources buried in these sites reveal a class structure that is revealed by the amount of resources that are buried with the person, and trade of resources is revealed through the place of origin of the resources found within these sites. Salisbury says that there were many resources that were found a great distance away from their place of origin which shows that Native peoples did in fact have an understanding of trade well before the arrival of the Europeans which is also mentioned in Cook’s article. Cook’s article features Cartier’s Voyages, a primary source