ANCIENT FOOTPRINTS
Title
ANCIENT FOOTPRINTS
Description
Between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago, Indigenous people walking in this area left footprints that were preserved in clay and later covered by Lake Ontario. In 1908, workers building a tunnel under the Toronto Bay located the footprints by accident.
The land now within Toronto has been near a major body of water for thousands of years. Small bands of nomadic hunters moved into the Great Lakes region about 13,000 years ago. These people hunted caribou, mammoths, mastodons, and other game. At this time, the shoreline of Lake Ontario was more than a kilometre (3,281 feet) south of its present location.
In 1908, workers building a waterworks tunnel near Hanlan’s Point found more than 100 individual human footprints in a layer of clay 21 metres (70 feet) below the water. They indicated that people were moving north in the direction of today’s downtown Toronto, possibly from a waterfront camp.
The prints were not preserved. The workers continued building the tunnel and destroyed the footprints in the process. Because the prints were lost, it is impossible to say if they were genuine, but experts believe them to have been authentic.
HERITAGE TORONTO 2021
The land now within Toronto has been near a major body of water for thousands of years. Small bands of nomadic hunters moved into the Great Lakes region about 13,000 years ago. These people hunted caribou, mammoths, mastodons, and other game. At this time, the shoreline of Lake Ontario was more than a kilometre (3,281 feet) south of its present location.
In 1908, workers building a waterworks tunnel near Hanlan’s Point found more than 100 individual human footprints in a layer of clay 21 metres (70 feet) below the water. They indicated that people were moving north in the direction of today’s downtown Toronto, possibly from a waterfront camp.
The prints were not preserved. The workers continued building the tunnel and destroyed the footprints in the process. Because the prints were lost, it is impossible to say if they were genuine, but experts believe them to have been authentic.
HERITAGE TORONTO 2021
Creator
Sarah J. McCabe
Date
April 17, 2023
Files
Collection
Citation
Sarah J. McCabe, “ANCIENT FOOTPRINTS,” Historic Plaques of Ontario: An Omeka Demo Site, accessed April 28, 2024, https://ontarioplaques.omeka.net/items/show/726.