The First Virginian

No one knows for sure who was the first person to step into Virginia. That happened perhaps 15-20,000 years ago, so the first Virginian had no concept of the boundaries of a future "Virginia." There was no grand entrance; there was just one small step to cross a boundary line that would be not be drawn until far, far in the future.

What route did the First Virginian take, when entering the state?

The first person in Virginia may have been:

- a solo hunter on an extended journey, following a river valley upstream from what today we call the Tennessee River into modern-day Lee, Scott, or Washington County... or even the City of Bristol

- lost in the woods, and followed a deer trail up the Russell Fork River to cross through Breaks Interstate Park on the Kentucky-Virginia border into Dickinson County

- a scout for a family group that was migrating towards better hunting/gathering territory, as the family traveled downstream along the shoreline of what we now call the Potomac River, crossing the border of modern-day Virginia near Frederick County

- part of a hunting party that traveled from the Ohio River, walked up the Kanawha River to the New River, and crossed into modern-day Giles County

- in a small boat that landed at modern-day Chincoteague, after leaving Europe and hunting seals along the edge of the retreating ice sheet

Paleo-Indian hunters or foraging bands might have entered the state from the west. Had humans arrived before the last Ice Age, they might have walked upstream along the path of the Teays River all the way from Hudson Bay. The Teays was truncated and the Ohio River developed from meltwater at the edge of the glaciers, but the first humans to enter Virginia could have followed the ancient path of the Teays - ironically, now called the New River - to enter modern-day Virginia at the edge of Giles County.

Perhaps the first arrivals followed a different tributary of the Ohio River. They could have walked along the Tennessee River and entered Virginia's southern edge, via the Powell, Clinch,or Holston rivers. The first Virginians might have stayed further north, traveled near the glacier's melting edge, and crossed the Eastern Continental Divide to enter Virginia via the headwaters of the Potomac River.

The oldest known location of Virginians is the Cactus Hill site in Sussex County, dating back about 17,000 years ago. It is very possible that the first humans to enter Virginia entered from the south, followiing the Roanoke River drainage before branching off to the north and following the Nottoway River to Cactus Hill.

paths the first human(s) may have taken to enter Virginia
(We do know that the first Virginian was not a European who arrived in the 1500's. The Spaniards and English who attempted
to colonize Virginia were late-comers, and Virginia Dare was not the first girl born in Virginia...)

One possibility: the first Virginian arrived along the Atlantic Ocean edge, rather than by following a river upstream. He (or she) may have walked down the northern coast at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, ventured southward along the beach, and crossed over into modern Accomack County on the Eastern Shore. Maybe the first Virginian came northward along the ocean from the warmer south, walking upstream from today's North Carolina by following the coastline to Virginia Beach. The first Virginian may even have arrived in a boat that crossed the Atlantic Ocean, hunting seals on the ice floes fringing the edge of the ice sheet covering the North Atlantic.

If the first Virginian came along the coast, they did not see the barrier island at Assateague or the "Green Sea" marsh between the Back Bay and the Dismal Swamp. If humans first settled Virginia near the maximum extent of the Wisconsin glaciation, the shoreline of the Attlantic Ocean was roughly 50 miles further offshore¹ and 300 feet lower² than now.

Roanoke, Meherrin, and Nottaway are Native American names for Virginia rivers - but they were not the original names used by the first Virginians. Place names used by Native Americans in the early 1600's (before the Europeans arrived) had little or no relationship to the first names assigned to those places. The English changed the name of "Powhatan's River" to "James River" to honor a ruler in London, but the Native Americans under Powhatan's control may have made a similar change within the last 30 years. The first Virginians, maybe 15-25,000 years ago, did not speak the Algonquian language or have a chief called Powhatan... so the original names of the Virginia rivers were not the names recorded by John Smith on his map of Virginia.

References

1. "The Geology of Virginia - Coastal Plain Province," College of William & Mary Department of Geology, http://web.wm.edu/geology/virginia/provinces/coastalplain/coastal_plain.html (last checked September 2, 2010)
2. Wayne L. Newell, Inga Clark, and Owen Bricker, "Distribution of Holocene Sediment in Chesapeake Bay as Interpreted from Submarine Geomorphology of the Submerged Landforms, Selected Core Holes, Bridge Borings and Seismic Profiles," US Geological Survey Open-File Report 2004-1235, 2004, http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2004/1235/ (last checked September 2, 2010)