by Chris Pearce

Created on: July 04, 2009   Last Updated: July 13, 2009

The Beothuk people lived on the Canadian island of Newfoundland when the Europeans arrived in the late 15th and 16th centuries. They were regarded as a separate ethnic group who had lived on the island for at least 1,500 years.

Their origins are uncertain. Surviving examples of the Beothuk language appear to link it to the Algonquian languages, and recent DNA evidence seems to back this up. In 2007, tests were conducted on parts of the teeth of Nonosabasut and his wife Demasduit who were two of the last surviving Beothuk in the 1820s. These tests linked them to the Mikmaq people who lived on the Nova Scotia peninsula.

Algonquian languages were spoken across a large area of Canada, including the peninsula as well as in the Quebec and Labrador areas, opposite Newfoundland. This indicates that the Beothuk may have migrated from the mainland across the narrow northern entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence, a distance of about nine miles. They would have seen the island from the mainland and perhaps escaped from an enemy by boat to the island. Or perhaps they were forced to migrate due to famine.

Their first migration is thought to have occurred about 2,000 years ago. The Beothuk went through four cultural phases, each lasting up to about 500 years, suggesting further migration waves.

The DNA testing also showed the Beothuk had only Native American ancestry, quashing an earlier theory that they also had European blood. They may have had early European contact though, when Norse seafarers around 1000 CE encountered people in Newfoundland they called "skraelings," meaning barbarians.

The Beothuk lived throughout the island, especially around the bays of Notre Dame and Bonavista along the northern coast. Recent estimates of their number at the time of European contact in the late 15th century are 500-700. They were hunter-gatherers who lived in small tribal groups of 30-60 people.

Their conical shaped houses, or "mamateeks," were made of a number of sticks leaning inwards and tied at the top before covering the structure with birch bark. Extra padding was laid over it in winter. A fireplace for cooking and warmth was dug in the middle. They painted their bodies with red ochre, giving rise to the early European description as "Red Indians." Their houses, most possessions, and even their babies were smeared with this ochre.

Food sources included caribou, seals, salmon, and other animals, as well as an assortment of plants. They trapped deer

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