tle is know about actual numbers, the organization of their society and their religious beliefs. Estimates of the population at the time of first European contact were as high as 2000, but today historians estimate that number to be between 500 and 1000 (Rowe, 1977). This lack of Beothuk knowledge is due to the fact that for a number of reasons; the sorts of European observers - Indian agents, missionaries, and fur traders - who provided information about other Native Peoples, were absent in Newfoundland. From it's discovery until well into the 18th century, Newfoundland was primarily a base for a European mi!
             gratory fishery. Those fishermen came in the spring and left in late summer. By the time English permanent settlement which had begun on the Avalon Peninsula had spread to Trinity Bay, Bonavista Bay, and Notre Dame Bay, over 150 years would pass with very little mention of the Beothuk.
             The island of Newfoundland has been inhabited approximately for the past 5000 years. The first inhabitants , the Maritime Archaic Indians came to the island from Labrador around 3000 BC and left or died out around 1050 BC. Their place on the island was assumed by two groups of palaeoeskimos during the period 850 BC to 950 AD; first by the Groswater culture who in turn were replaced by the Dorset Eskimo. By studying the last years of the Dorset culture, archaeologists have found traces of an Indian population that are believed to be ancestral to the Beothuk culture.
             Around 50 BC another Indian population migrated to western Newfoundland, with the last migration from 1100-1200 AD. The latter movement of Indians was called the Little Passage Indians. The Beothuk are assumed to be direct cultural and genetic descendants of the Little Passage Indians. The assumption was derived from the study of the similarities of the styles of stone tools produced by the Little Passage people and the Beothuk. Other native groups...