One of the most persistent debates in the archaeology of the North American Arctic relates to thirteenth-century AD population distributions and movements. Around this time, the final culture of the ...long-lived Paleo-Inuit tradition, known as Late Dorset, was replaced by Thule Inuit, who migrated from Alaska to the Eastern Arctic. Due to the almost complete lack of evidence for direct interaction between Dorset and Thule, there are currently two contrasting models for this transitional period. The first proposes a temporal hiatus between Late Dorset and Thule during which the Eastern Arctic was unoccupied. The second proposes that Late Dorset persisted to at least the late thirteenth century and still occupied some regions of the Eastern Arctic when Thule arrived. Resolution of this question depends largely on radiocarbon dates, particularly for the poorly understood Late Dorset period. This article presents 56 new AMS radiocarbon dates from three Late Dorset sites in the Iqaluktuuq region of southeastern Victoria Island in the Central Arctic. They resolve a significant part of the debate by confirming that Dorset settlement continued in this region later than AD 1300, thus overlapping with Thule settlement in adjacent regions for decades, and perhaps as much as a century.
Un des débats les plus persistants dans l'archéologie de l'Arctique nord-américain concerne les distributions et mouvements de population au 13e siècle. À peu près à ce moment, la culture finale d'une longue tradition paléo-inuite, connue sous le nom de Dorsétien récent, fut remplacée par les Inuit Thuléens, lesquels ont migré en Arctique de l'Est depuis l'Alaska. En raison d'un manque presque complet de preuves pour une interaction directe entre les Dorsétiens et les Thuléens, il y a présentement deux modèles opposés pour cette période transitionnelle. Le premier propose un hiatus temporel entre le Dorsétien récent et le Thuléen durant lequel l'Arctique de l'Est aurait été inoccupé. Le second propose que les Dorsétiens auraient persisté jusqu'au moins la fin du 13e siècle et auraient occupé certaines régions de l'Arctique de l'Est à l'arrivée des Thuléens. La réponse à cette question dépend largement des dates radiocarbones, particulièrement pour la période peu connue du Dorsétien récent. Cet article présente 56 nouvelles dates radiocarbones AMS provenant de trois sites Dorsétiens récents de la région d'Iqaluktuuq dans le Sud-Est de l’île Victoria en Arctique central. Elles résolvent une part significative du débat en confirmant que les établissements dorsétiens se sont poursuivis dans cette région après 1300 après J.-C. et sont conséquemment contemporains aux établissements thuléens dans les régions adjacentes pendant des décennies, voire près d'un siècle.
The New World Arctic, the last region of the Americas to be populated by humans, has a relatively well-researched archaeology, but an understanding of its genetic history is lacking. We present ...genome-wide sequence data from ancient and present-day humans from Greenland, Arctic Canada, Alaska, Aleutian Islands, and Siberia. We show that Paleo-Eskimos (~3000 BCE to 1300 CE) represent a migration pulse into the Americas independent of both Native American and Inuit expansions. Furthermore, the genetic continuity characterizing the Paleo-Eskimo period was interrupted by the arrival of a new population, representing the ancestors of present-day Inuit, with evidence of past gene flow between these lineages. Despite periodic abandonment of major Arctic regions, a single Paleo-Eskimo metapopulation likely survived in near-isolation for more than 4000 years, only to vanish around 700 years ago.
•Variability in and significance of hunter-gatherer aggregation sites are reviewed.•The Cadfael archaeological site is a Dorset aggregation in the Canadian Arctic.•The aggregation site contains stone ...longhouses as well as ritual features.•Change over time at the site results from interaction between Dorset and Inuit.
Most hunter-gatherer lifeways revolve around periodic large gatherings – aggregations – that serve as social, ritual, and economic anchors for their annual cycles. However, in archaeological contexts they are often difficult to recognize. This paper describes and interprets a particularly large and well-preserved example of a warm season aggregation site dating to the Late Dorset period in the eastern North American Arctic. This site extends for over 750 m along coastal beach ridges and contains four boulder-outlined “longhouses” of up to 38 m in length as well as hundreds of other features used for storage, cooking, and ritual activities. In addition to interpreting the range of activities occurring on the site, this paper discusses the clear evidence for change over time in the ways its inhabitants interacted with the built environment, and with each other. Because these changes took place mainly during the 13th century CE, they likely represent a reaction to the arrival in this region of ancestral Inuit, who migrated from Alaska during this period and ultimately replaced Dorset populations.
The cold, wet climate of the Arctic has led to the extraordinary preservation of archaeological sites and materials that offer important contributions to the understanding of our common cultural and ...ecological history. This potential, however, is quickly disappearing due to climate-related variables, including the intensification of permafrost thaw and coastal erosion, which are damaging and destroying a wide range of cultural and environmental archives around the Arctic. In providing an overview of the most important effects of climate change in this region and on archaeological sites, the authors propose the next generation of research and response strategies, and suggest how to capitalise on existing successful connections among research communities and between researchers and the public.
Much of the American Arctic was first settled 5,000 years ago, by groups of people known as Palaeo-Eskimos. They were subsequently joined and largely displaced around 1,000 years ago by ancestors of ...the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik
. The genetic relationship between Palaeo-Eskimos and Native American, Inuit, Yup'ik and Aleut populations remains uncertain
. Here we present genomic data for 48 ancient individuals from Chukotka, East Siberia, the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the Canadian Arctic. We co-analyse these data with data from present-day Alaskan Iñupiat and West Siberian populations and published genomes. Using methods based on rare-allele and haplotype sharing, as well as established techniques
, we show that Palaeo-Eskimo-related ancestry is ubiquitous among people who speak Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut languages. We develop a comprehensive model for the Holocene peopling events of Chukotka and North America, and show that Na-Dene-speaking peoples, people of the Aleutian Islands, and Yup'ik and Inuit across the Arctic region all share ancestry from a single Palaeo-Eskimo-related Siberian source.
Change in sea levels, be they isostatic or eustatic, impact humans and the paleogeography they inhabit. In this paper we examine paleogeography at Iqaluktuuq, a section of the Ekalluk River, Victoria ...Island, Nunavut, between Tahiryuaq (Ferguson Lake) and Wellington Bay. The area’s isostatic rebound impacted the Ekalluk River’s development and the use of the area by two essential subsistence resources, Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus). This, in turn, impacted the choices of Pre-Dorset, Middle and Late Dorset, and Thule/Inuit people regarding site locations. A new relative sea-level curve developed using calibrated radiocarbon dates on marine shells and terrestrial material from archaeological sites is produced for Iqaluktuuq. Based on the data, large scale (1:50,000) paleogeography maps are presented for the period of human occupation of Iqaluktuuq, 3100 calibrated years Before Present (B.P. cal) to present, revealing how paleogeography impacts people’s settlement choices.
...many archaeologists now term the most recent archaeological tradition "Inuit," rather than "Neo-Eskimo" or the like, even though there hasn't been much formal discussion around this issue. ...this ...term should become formalized, with all direct Inuit ancestors back to and including Thule Inuit considered part of the "Inuit tradition"; it's hard to justify not using this term when the people who lived in these sites were Inuit!
Out of the Cold Friesen, T. Max; Mason, Owen K
03/2018
eBook
The Arctic rim of North America presents one of the most daunting environments for humans. Cold and austere, it is lacking in plants but rich in marine mammals-primarily the ringed seal, walrus, and ...bowhead whale. In this book in the SAA Press Current Perspectives Series, the authors track the history of cultural innovations in the Arctic and Subarctic for the past 12,000 years, including the development of sophisticated architecture, watercraft, fur clothing, hunting technology, and worldviews. Climate change is linked to many of the successes and failures of its inhabitants; warming or cooling periods led to periods of resource abundance or collapse, and in several instances to long-distance migrations. At its western and eastern margins, the Arctic also experienced the impact of Asian and European world systems, from that of the Norse in the East to the Russians in the Bering Strait.
The Thule migration from Alaska to the eastern North American Arctic is central to the understanding of Inuit history. However, despite decades of study, its timing remains controversial, with recent ...reappraisals suggesting that it may have occurred much later than the date of A.D. 1000 most often assumed for it. In this paper, we present newly obtained radiocarbon dates from two early Thule sites, Nelson River (OhRh-1) and Washout (NjVi-2), located on the Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf coasts. This region is crucial to any understanding of the migration, because Thule Inuit would have had to pass through it in order to reach the eastern Arctic. Nelson River in particular has long been considered a good candidate for the earliest Thule site east of Alaska, based on a number of lines of evidence including the presence of both Natchuk and Sicco harpoon heads. In this paper, we present new dates for Nelson River and Washout that demonstrate that neither site was occupied before the thirteenth century A.D. The new dates have profound implications for Arctic archaeology, because they strengthen the case for a thirteenth-century migration, and by doing so demonstrate that it was more rapid and widespread than has generally been believed. The dates also suggest that the "Classic" Thule period is a relatively brief phenomenon, lasting perhaps only 200 years or less, before being rapidly reorganized into the diversity of Inuit societies encountered in later Arctic history.
This paper examines differences between Late Dorset and Thule Inuit subsistence economies at the Bell site on Victoria Island, Nunavut. This location is relatively unusual in the Canadian Arctic ...because local subsistence was based largely on caribou and fish, rather than the sea mammals that dominate in most other regions. For both periods, animal bone samples are quantified in terms of taxonomic frequencies, element (body part) distributions, seasonality, prey demography, and bone modifications such as cutting, burning, and gnawing. A comparison between the periods indicates many broad similarities in subsistence, but some subtle differences suggest that the Thule had a more focal and specialized economy, with a slightly different seasonal profile.
Le présent article porte sur les différences entre l’économie de subsistance du Dorsétien récent et l’économie de subsistance des Inuits thuléens au site Bell de l’île Victoria, au Nunavut. Cet emplacement de l’Arctique canadien est assez inhabituel en ce sens que la subsistance de la région reposait grandement sur le caribou et le poisson, et non pas sur les mammifères marins qui dominent la plupart des autres régions. Pour ces deux périodes, les échantillons d’ossements d’animaux sont quantifiés en fonction des fréquences taxonomiques, de la répartition des éléments (restes), de leur saisonnalité, de la démographie des proies et des altérations subies par les os, comme les marques de coupure, de brûlure et de rongement. La comparaison des périodes permet de remarquer de nombreuses similitudes générales sur le plan de la subsistance, mais certaines différences subtiles suggèrent que les Thuléens avaient une économie plus concentrée et spécialisée de même qu’un profil saisonnier légèrement différent.
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