The Paleo-Eskimo Saqqaq and Independence I cultures, documented from archaeological remains in Northern Canada and Greenland, represent the earliest human expansion into the New World's northern ...extremes. However, their origin and genetic relationship to later cultures are unknown. We sequenced a mitochondrial genome from a Paleo-Eskimo human by using 3400-to 4500-year-old frozen hair excavated from an early Greenlandic Saqqaq settlement. The sample is distinct from modern Native Americans and Neo-Eskimos, falling within haplogroup D2a1, a group previously observed among modern Aleuts and Siberian Sireniki Yuit. This result suggests that the earliest migrants into the New World's northern extremes derived from populations in the Bering Sea area and were not directly related to Native Americans or the later Neo-Eskimos that replaced them.
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•Fully excavated, short-term, open-air site with multiple dwellings and features.•All traces of habitation marked with hand to palm-sized, flat, black rocks.•Chaîne opératoire and targeted refitting ...employed to understand behaviour patterns.•Documentation of face-to-face contemporaneity on a Greenlandic Dorset settlement.•Evidence of meat sharing, core exchange, ritual burning, ritual closing of the site.
To reveal prehistoric behaviours and modes of conduct from an archaeological assemblage it is necessary to employ more encompassing methodological approaches that bring people’s acts and thoughts into focus. The following study investigates the lithic assemblage, from a fully excavated multiple dwelling site from High Arctic Greenland, in an attempt to demonstrate that the application of the chaîne opératoire, with an emphasis on problem-oriented refitting, can produce unexpected and often surprising outcomes. Furthermore, this approach offers a unique opportunity to explore the dynamics of activity structure, technological organization, disposal mode, and spatial patterning normally considered beyond the grasp of archaeological investigations.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
We report here the genome sequence of an ancient human. Obtained from approximately 4,000-year-old permafrost-preserved hair, the genome represents a male individual from the first known culture to ...settle in Greenland. Sequenced to an average depth of 20x, we recover 79% of the diploid genome, an amount close to the practical limit of current sequencing technologies. We identify 353,151 high-confidence single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), of which 6.8% have not been reported previously. We estimate raw read contamination to be no higher than 0.8%. We use functional SNP assessment to assign possible phenotypic characteristics of the individual that belonged to a culture whose location has yielded only trace human remains. We compare the high-confidence SNPs to those of contemporary populations to find the populations most closely related to the individual. This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This review critically evaluates the available mercury (Hg) data in Arctic marine biota and the Inuit population against toxicity threshold values. In particular marine top predators exhibit ...concentrations of mercury in their tissues and organs that are believed to exceed thresholds for biological effects. Species whose concentrations exceed threshold values include the polar bears (Ursus maritimus), beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), pilot whale (Globicephala melas), hooded seal (Cystophora cristata), a few seabird species, and landlocked Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus). Toothed whales appear to be one of the most vulnerable groups, with high concentrations of mercury recorded in brain tissue with associated signs of neurochemical effects. Evidence of increasing concentrations in mercury in some biota in Arctic Canada and Greenland is therefore a concern with respect to ecosystem health.
► Unpublished and published data were compiled for Arctic fish, birds, and mammals. ► These data were compared to available toxicological threshold limits. ► Toothed whales, polar bears, and some bird and fish species exceeded the limits. ► Increasing mercury concentrations are observed for some Arctic species. ► These exceeded thresholds and increasing Hg trends are of concern.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Recent years have seen an increasing effort towards the development and adoption of sustainable crop protection strategies, especially in the EU. Several policy frameworks have been put in place ...including the EU framework Directive (128/EC/2009) on the sustainable use of pesticides. Consequently, all EU Member States developed National Action Plans to ensure the implementation of the general principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by all professional pesticide users starting from January 1, 2014. On the other hand, there are also difficulties related to the adoption of IPM in Europe and worldwide which seek for a better understanding of factors hindering IPM uptake. This paper presents the potential role that each actor of the food chain may have - called here stakeholders - to ensure a higher level IPM adoption in Europe. The information reported here is a summary based on several discussions held within a three-year European Research Area Network project on Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERA-Net C-IPM;
http://c-ipm.org/
).
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BFBNIB, DOBA, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Radiocarbon age determinations of 32 walrus (Odobenus rosmarus) remains show that the species has been a member of the Greenland fauna since at least the middle Holocene. The oldest date is 7280–7160 ...calendar years BP. However, most dated remains come from archaeological sites and are of late Holocene age
Coal petrographic techniques have been used to trace the origin of coal used to produce artifacts by the Thule people in north-eastern Greenland. The coal artifacts were collected from the north-east ...coast settlements between 76°55'–80°18'N and date back to the 15th century A.D.
The petrographic data suggest that they have a common source, the Middle Jurassic coals outcropping south of 75°15' in north-eastern Greenland. It is thus evident that the Thule people used local material rather than bringing the coal from the known “mines” in Arctic Canada. It also implies that contemporaneous Thule people groups along the east coast of Greenland were in contact and traded.
Northwest Greenland formerly supported a population of musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus). Radiocarbon dating of musk-ox remains collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded ...Late Holocene ages, indicating that the species was a late immigrant to this part of Greenland. Musk-ox arrived at a time when Greenland was uninhabited, and the species had at least several hundred years to expand and spread south, before the Late Dorset people arrived and began to hunt. The main reason that the species did not disperse south to West Greenland was probably because of the barrier presented by Melville Bugt, which was heavily glaciated in the Late Holocene. However, if there had been a longer period of time before hunting of the musk-ox occurred, there would have been an enhanced likelihood that chance dispersal south could have taken place. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Abstract
In Greenland, Palaeoeskimo dwellings are mostly concentrated in the north and northeast parts of the island. Some are found in the southeast, in the west (from Nuuk to Disko Bay), and in the ...northwest (Inglefield Land and Washington Land). During the entire period, Palaeoeskimo dwellings show an emphasis on an axial element. In the Early Palaeoeskimo period (Saqqaq and Independence I) the fireplace is a separate square box inside two parallel rows of flags or boulders. Cooking and/or seething stones are common during Saqqaq and rare in Dorset. In Late Saqqaq, a shift in dwelling style to a platform-like dwelling is indicated by material from the Disko Bay region. During Independence II, the external borders of the axial feature often extend towards the front of the dwelling and may display "wings" at one or both ends. Late Dorset is only found in Northwest Greenland where the material from Inglefield Land documents the presence of at least four dwelling types with a clear axial element in the more substantial ruins.
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