Тұрақтар мен ежелгі халықтар: Гранд өзені аймағындағы археологиялық зерттеулер

The Laphroaig site (AgHa 54) on the lower Grand River shows evidence of occupation in the latter part of the Early Archaic period. During the Late Archaic period (c. 4500 RCYBP to c. 2800 RCYBP), water levels in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario were higher due to drainage reasons as the land continued to deglaciate. The people of the Late Archaic were mobile hunter gatherers who had not yet developed ceramics. While Late Archaic people in what is now southern Ontario used a variety of projectile point types, one distinct type, the Innes point, was associated with the Grand River drainage basin and took its name from a type site a few kilometres west of Brantford, which sits on the lower Grand River. Due to high water levels at the start of the Late Archaic, sites which are today located inland up the river may once have been true shoreline sites, similarly to the phenomenon of site stratification observed on Lake Huron. This phenomenon is also observable in reference to Lake Erie. For example, the Canada Century site (located on the Welland River) lies north of the Lake Erie shore, but may once have been significantly closer. Due to the absence of ceramics, it is difficult to date Archaic sites. It is generally believed that sites were occupied seasonally, though there are notable exceptions to this. The archaeologist Chris Ellis argues that in the 1950s and 1960s, there was a tendency for archaeologists in eastern North America to identify sedentarization with progress on a conceptual level. Some sites may have had a number of distinct occupations, occurring in different seasons and for different purposes. Nevertheless, there is a broad grouping of sites into warm weather, lowland sites characterized by ground stone tools and fishing equipment, or cold weather, upland sites with abundant scrapers and projectile points, possibly indicating fall and winter deer hunting activities. Evidence of Late Archaic fishing activities in Ontario is concentrated at lakeshore sites located at river mouths; no known site of this type, however, has been located on the Grand River. No evidence of fish at upland sites has been found, suggesting a pattern of seasonal upland hunting and lowland fishing. Tincombe points out, however, that fishing may still have occurred on the upper Grand River, notwithstanding a lack of surviving remains at sites. He further proposes areas around Caledonia and Brantford as persistent places of occupation in the Late Archaic, due to a high concentration of consecutively dated sites from that period. One especially significant site, the Johnson Flats site (Borden AgGx 214), is located on a former bar in the Grand River near Caledonia. Discovered in 1994, the site contains materials dating to the Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods, as well as the later Princess Point complex.

The people of the Princess Point complex (c. 500 CE – 1000 CE) are strongly associated with the Grand River by archaeologists. Princess Point sites cluster heavily along the river's length, where the focus and concentration of Princess Point people shifted from their earlier territory around Princess Point near Hamilton. Princess Point people were attracted to the fertile Grand River floodplains, in common with other peoples engaging in maize horticulture around the same time. Floodplains provided rich soils for cultivation, as well as easy access to riverine resources. Indeed, early evidence of lake sturgeon fishing on the Grand River has been discovered at the Cayuga Bridge site, which is also associated with the Princess Point complex and dated to AD 700900. Thousands of fish remains were also unearthed at the Porteous and Holmedale sites near Brantford, which date to around AD 1000.

By the 16th and 17th centuries, the Grand River valley was inhabited by the Neutral people. This was a name given to them by European settlers, as they refused to side with either the Iroquois or the Petun tribes during their conflicts in the area. An Iroquoian people, they had close trade and cultural relations with other Ontario Iroquoian societies such as the Huron and Petun. The Wyandot, another distinct Iroquoian speaking nation, who resided northeast of the Grand River valley, had long competed to remain independent of their enemy the Iroquois Confederacy, a powerful alliance of five nations based around the Great Lakes in the present central and western New York state area. Caught in between, the Neutrals paid dearly for their refusal to ally. Historical accounts differ on exactly how the Neutral tribe was wiped out. The consensus is that the Seneca and the Mohawk nations of the Iroquois destroyed the smaller Neutral tribe in the 17th century, in the course of attacking and severely crippling the Huron/Wyandot. The Iroquois were seeking to dominate the lucrative fur trade with the Europeans. It was during this warfare that the Iroquois attacked the Jesuit outpost of Sainte Marie among the Hurons. The Jesuits abandoned the mission after many Wyandot and numerous priests were killed here. To survive, remnants of The Neutral tribe migrated in 1667 to La Prairie (Caughnawaga or Kahnawake), a Catholic mission settlement just south of Montreal that was occupied primarily by converted Mohawk who had migrated north from New York. In 1674 identifiable groups of Neutrals were recorded among its population. It can be presumed that many of their descendants are still living there today. In later wars between Britain and France, the Caughnawaga people, many of whom had converted to Catholicism, were allies of the French. The Iroquois League in New York then was neutral or sided with the British. Because different nations were on different sides in this war, it was difficult for the Iroquois nations to adhere to the Great Law of Peace and avoid killing each other. They managed to avoid such bloodshed until the American Revolution (1775–83). Other descendants of the Neutrals may have joined the Mingo, a loose confederacy of peoples who moved west in the 1720s, fleeing lands invaded by Iroquois, and settled in present day Ohio. The Mingo were among tribes who later fought the Americans in the Northwest Indian Wars for the Ohio Valley (1774–95). During the 1840s, they were among the tribes removed to Oklahoma and Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Neutral descendants are among the people now known as the Seneca in Oklahoma. After the desolation of the Neutral tribe, the Iroquois Confederacy used the Grand River Valley as a hunting ground and trapping territory. Though the Six Nations (by then including the Tuscarora) held the territory by right of conquest, they did not settle it, apart from a limited presence on the northern and western shores of Lake Ontario. When the French explorers and Coureurs de bois came to the region in search of fur and other items of value to Europeans, the Grand River Valley was among the last areas of southern Ontario to be explored. Since the French worked closely with their Native allies in the acquisition of fur and trading of European goods for it, they went only where the natives resided. Even after the English conquered New France in 1760 during the Seven Years' War, the Grand River Valley remained largely unoccupied and largely uncharted. An explorers' map in 1669 showed the River as being called the Tinaatuoa or Riviere Rapide. A 1775 map shows it as Urse, a name which also appeared on a 1708 map and on Bellin’s Carte des Lacs of 1744. The d’Anville map of 1755 shows the river Tinaatuoa but adds the words Grande River at its mouth. Other 18th Century names were Oswego and Swaogeh. In 1792, Simcoe tried to change the name of Grande Riviere to Ouse, after a river in England and the Thomas Ridout map of 1821 shows "Grand R or Ouse". Simcoe failed because the name Grand River had been in common usage for some time by then.