The Iroquois Confederacy is formed – uniting five, once warring tribes, under the Gayanashagowa (or “Great Law of Peace”). The forming of these “tribes” also brought war between them. (The Archaic Period).ĭuring what is known as the “Woodland Period,” inhabitants prospered from agriculture and began forming more complex societies. Living off of the new bountiful habitat, hunter-gatherer societies take root.

The Great Lakes system begins to drain into the Atlantic Ocean.

The end of the last ice age fills Lake Ontario with melt water. The first human inhabitants, nomadic hunters called the Clovis, arrive. The region was a tundra with sparse spruce forests. At this time Niagara Falls was further downstream at present day Queenston, Ontario, and was a single cataract. Eventually these concentrate into one, becoming the Niagara river. The glaciers carve out the basins of the Great Lakes.Īs the glaciers recede, the Niagara Peninsula becomes free of ice.įloods of glacial melt water rush from Lake Erie down the Niagara Escarpment into Lake Iroquois (a precursor to Lake Ontario), forming several waterfall pathways. With the last, the Wisconsin Glaciation piling 2-3 kilometers of ice on top of southern Ontario. Niagara Falls tumbles over a portion of Niagara Escarpment.įour ice ages in a row sculpt the land. These protrusions are known as escarpments. Quick erosion of the soft layers exposes dramatic bands of the hard rock layers. The tilting of the bedrock exposed multiple layers of rock, some soft, others hard. Erosion smoothed out the bumps in the landscape of western NY and southern Ontario.Ī second uplift tilts rock layers in the northern portions of NY State down towards the north, effectively reversing the direction of many rivers and streams. Rivers and streams began cutting through the soft rock and limestone of the region, forming major river systems which continued eroding away to form the pre-glacial basins of the Great Lakes. This same uplift is responsible for forming the peaks of the Appalachian and Adirondack Mountain ranges. Uplift brought the bedrock above sea level and the inland sea dries up, leaving the underlying sediment as layers of soft rock.

Precambrian rock layers began forming the first continents, including the Canadian Shield, which is the foundation of the North American Continent in this region.Ī broad, shallow sea covered the region of the Great Lakes, depositing mud, sand, and silt across the region and building up layers of limestone (formed from deposits of shellfish).

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