*Beautiful Trail Horse*

The first inhabitants of the State of New York are believed to have been nomadic Paleo-Indians, who migrated after the disappearance of Pleistocene glaciers during or before 7000 BCE. Around 1000 CE, 1,000 years ago, the Woodland period began, marked by the rise of the Iroquois Confederacy and its tribes throughout the state. During French exploration of the region in 1620, the region was occupied simultaneously by the agrarian Erie people, a tribe outside of the Five Nations of the Iroquois southwest of Buffalo Creek, and the Wenro people or Wenrohronon, an Iroquoian-speaking tribal offshoot of the large Neutral Nation who lived along the inland south shore of Lake Ontario and at the east end of Lake Erie and a bit of its northern shore. For trading, the Neutral people made a living by growing tobacco and hemp to trade with the Iroquois, using animal paths or warpaths to travel and move goods across the state. These paths were later paved, and now function as major roads.