Blackfoot before 1500 AD
People lived in Blackfoot territory (modern Montana and Canada) in the Paleo-Indian period, by around 10,000 BC. They lived by hunting and gathering. They hunted mammoth, and gathered eggs and wild plants. By 6000 BC, in the Archaic period, the climate warmed up, so the big animals like mammoth became extinct. Now Blackfoot people hunted buffalo, deer, and mountain sheep, using their spears and atlatls.
By the Woodland period, about 1 AD, Blackfoot hunters used the bow and arrow instead of the spear and atlatl, which let them shoot buffalo and other animals more accurately and from much further away. That way they could catch more food. Kids lived with their families in wickiups or in tipis, usually in small groups called bands. Sometimes in winter people built pit houses to keep warm. The Blackfoot were nomads who often changed where they were living. They had dogs that pulled their stuff for them. They traveled about five to eight miles a day.
