Please note that the Cataraqui Archaeological Research Foundation and the Kingston Archaeology Centre have closed. This site is still available for historical and informational reasons, but none of the services or products described here are available anymore.

Kingston Past

View of Kingston Harbour
1875

People have inhabited the area that is now Kingston for thousands of years.

The region was home to native groups as early as 7000 B.C.E., to French traders and soldiers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to British and British-American settlers in the eighteenth century, and finally to some of the major figures of early Canada in the nineteenth century. Each of these cultures left its mark on the land; their various legacies contribute significantly to the Kingston of today.