Their world, known as Lenapehoking, was a pristine landscape of tidal marshes, oak-hickory forests, and coastal meadows. Early Maps and a Foreign Landscape For the first century of its existence, the city remained a fragile outpost in a wilderness that seemed inconceivably vast to its European inhabitants.
Hudson River North River Marine Ecosystem: Tracing Lenapehoking's Coastal Wilderness
Freshwater springs and streams flowed freely, unpolluted and abundant. Geography and Ecology The geography of pre-colonial New York was defined by a massive harbor, a natural wonder created by the surging tides of the Atlantic Ocean that pushed far inland.
Shell middens, the ancient trash heaps of these early inhabitants, are the most tangible proof of their existence, revealing a diet rich in shellfish, fish, and game, and a life intimately connected to the natural rhythms of the land and sea. What are now the distinct boroughs were a collection of islands, peninsulas, and riverbanks, all connected by a complex network of tidal estuaries and creeks.
Hudson River North River Marine Ecosystem: Lenapehoking's Pristine Coastal Landscape
Expansive, old-growth forests covered the majority of the land, providing shelter and resources. This process of land reclamation and earthmoving was the physical manifestation of the city's ambition, a deliberate act of imposing human order on a chaotic natural world.
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