American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Long-distance contact throughout prehistoric times and the period of European exploration in North America had a pronounced impact on native cultures. Distance and geography did not limit far-flung social relations, travel, and trade among tribal peoples. The convergence of cultures ill many regions, and, at times, a virtual homogenization of societies across wide areas, was not usually the result of random diffusion. instead, archaeological evidence and ethnographic accounts imply extensive long - term relations among selected groups for specific social, economic, or political benefits. To many of the colonizing Europeans, the New World was both an attraction and a repulsion. A variety of social. economic, military, and religious motives impelled settlers to the American shores. The largest proportion of these numbers settled on the coastal margins, and the residents largely confined their activities within a small radius around the village clusters. Toward the sea was an exception, for intercourse along the coast and across the sea was anxiously maintained. In early colonial history, penetration of the interior took place with almost surprising deliberation. Contrary to popular belief, westward expansion resulted from something other than a burning desire to observe what layover the mountain, or to confront the Indians. Land pressure resulting from depleted soils, along with economic and political compulsions, literally shoved certain segments of the population into the great beyond. Latecomers to America (i.e., those after 1700), marginal farmers, squatters, and ne'er-do-wells served as the not altogether willing vanguard of civilization in the wake of missionaries and traders. At the beginning, America's landscape offered as great a psychological and physical deterrent to the white settlers as did the tribes who already dwelt there. The terms "forest primeval," "dismal wilderness," and "trackless wasteland" are legacies that recall the hesitant conquest of the American continent. These terms survive, even though the notion they convey is, at best, semilegendary. The natural American setting had immense forests, but they were laced by streams, pocked by glades, and dissected by the trails of animals. Signs of human activity greeted the reluctant tenderfoot even in pioneer times. Paths and trade routes were active in most areas, affording proof that this seemingly formidable environment was not totally confining to its native inhabitants, the American Indians. Thus, in view of the significant archaeological evidence for wide-area connections well before European colonization, the time-honored, cherished concept of a primeval forest deserves reinterpretation.