Includes index.

Bibliography: pages 193-210.

"The native peoples of the Canadian prairie provinces have been living on the land for at least 12,000 years, wresting sustenance from the grasslands and aspen parklands of the great plains that cover North America's heartlands. our Knowledge of them is limited: we have a brief picture of them galloping out on horseback to hunt the bison, then the glory is gone. Already in the process of change, the Indian way of life was swiftly destroyed by the influx of explorers and settlers who came to take over the country. The prehistoric nomadic inhabitants of Canada had no writing, no large settlements, and very little in the way of lasting material things. Before Europeans came to North America they had no guns, no horses, no hard metals. What clues we have come primarily from the work of archaeologists sifting through the buried evidence - little bits of stone and bone and pottery, refuse heaps and fire pits, ancient villages and burials, fingerprints and prehistoric blood. Yet theirs is a long and triumphant story of survival, a story that is even now just beginning to be told" - back cover.