For many thousands of years, native peoples used the area of Fork Branch Nature Preserve seasonally because its freshwater marshes and well-drained uplands provided a wide range of natural food resources. A brown jasper spear point dating from as long ago as 10,000 years was recovered there and was probably used by hunter-gathering people seeking white-tailed deer and other game. Small fragments of tool-making debris suggest that points and other tools were sharpened there, though they were made elsewhere, probably closer to the stone sources. Jasper was available from outcrops on Iron Hill and from cobbles on the beaches of Delaware Bay carried there by melting glaciers. Fragments of tempered pottery show that sustained native use of the land dates from about 3,000 years ago to just before the arrival of the first Europeans. The forest also provided abundant acorns and other nuts that were a vital food resource.