resident=culture?

[mengta]

Native American burial sites dating back 5000 years indicate that the residents of Maine at that time were part of a widespread culture of Algonquian-speaking people?

The sentence is confused to me. Why residents were culture?

thanks

[Ngoc_Trong_May]

I dont think so . "Part" is an uncount noun when it is used to indicate people .
The sentence ,or course ,as my understanding , means the residents of Maine have a major effect to the culture of it.So it is part of the culture .I dont think i am a stranger to it .

[Anglika]

Native American burial sites dating back 5000 years indicate that the residents of Maine at that time were part of a widespread culture of Algonquian-speaking people?

The sentence is confused to me. Why residents were culture?

thanks

The evidence from the burial sites indicates that the people living in Maine 5000 years ago were part of a cultural group of various tribes linked by language, which was Algonquian.