Thule people
Evidence supports the idea that the Thule (and, to a lesser degree, the Dorset) were in contact with the Vikings, who had reached the shores of Canada in the 11th century as part of the Norse colonization of North America.
[4] The Thule culture was mapped out by Therkel Mathiassen, following his participation as an archaeologist and cartographer of the Fifth Danish Expedition to Arctic America in 1921–1924.
He excavated sites on Baffin Island and the northwestern Hudson Bay region, which he considered to be the remains of a highly developed Eskimo whaling culture that had originated in Alaska and moved to Arctic Canada approximately 1000 years ago.
They also developed new uses for iron and copper and demonstrated advanced harpoon technology and use of bowhead whales, the largest animal in the Arctic.
[6] The Old Bering Sea (OBS) stage was first characterized by Diamond Jenness, on the basis of a collection of deeply patinated decorated ivory harpoon heads and other objects dug up by natives on the St. Lawrence and Diomede Islands.
[6] The toolkits of the people of the time are dominated by polished-slate rather than flaked-stone artifacts, including lanceolate knives, projectile heads, and the ulu transverse-bladed knife.
It is easy to pick out OBS technology because of the artistic curvilinear dots, circles, and shorter lines that were used to decorate their tools.
[6] The chronological relationship between the Okvik and Old Bering Seas cultures has been the subject of debate and remains largely undecided, based mainly on art styles.
Open sea whaling required skilled leadership, teams of expert boatmen and hunters, and the cooperation of several boats.
The Punuk developed their methods of hunting that led to the creation of armor made from bone as well as the technology of the bow and arrow.
The little art that was present in the Birnirk stage was limited to spiral and concentric motifs on clay pots with bone paddles.
[6] Birnirk houses were square shaped, with walls constructed of horizontal logs and single or double posts in each corner.
No interior hearths were found in the house ruins, although heavily encrusted and fire-blackened pottery vessel fragments suggest extensive use of open fires.
The archaeologist Alan McCartney originally coined the term "Classic Thule" with reference to the population that existed between 1100 and 1400 AD.
The Thule people still lived in semi-subterranean winter houses, but in the summer moved into skin tents, the edges held down by circles of stone.
There were slight artistic details on household things such as combs but it involved very simple, linear designs featuring people without appendages, animals, or symbols that represented the human ties with the supernatural world.
[citation needed] Post-Classic Thule tradition existed from 1400 up until European contact in areas where whales were not as prevalent so there is an increase in evidence of other means of subsistence, such as caribou, seal and fish.
A team of anthropologists, archaeologists and natural scientists compiled a massive description of the Canadian Arctic on the fifth Thule expedition.
[4] Therkel Mathiassen added upon their research and claimed that the tradition had started out in Alaska, and that Thule hunting was based on the dog sled, the large skin boat and the kayak which enabled them to range over a much greater hunting territory, participate in widespread trade, and transport heavier loads.
The idea is that the first Thule families to move followed groups of bowhead whales, which were an important source of food, fuel and raw materials.
[8] The onset of the Neo-Atlantic climatic episode, a warming trend which occurred between 900 and 1200 in the northern hemisphere, resulted in the lengthened season of open water along the North Alaskan Coast, and an extension of the summer range of bowhead whales into the Beaufort Sea and further east into the Canadian Archipelago.
General climatic warming may have reduced the extent and severity of pack ice, allowing bowheads and their Thule predators to expand eastward.
[8] Another theory is that warfare in Alaska or a desire to seek out new resources of iron for making tools such as knives may have encouraged people to move eastward.
One route follows the Beaufort Sea coast and Amundsen Gulf, entering the High Arctic via Parry Channel and Smith Sound.
Their success in hunting bowhead whales was facilitated through their use of large boats, and their vast foraging range through the use of dog sleds.
[13] The presence of small quantities of native copper from the western arctic and meteoric iron from north-west Greenland indicate the existence of trade networks taking place in Thule culture.
The people could get a lot of meat for food, blubber for oil that could be used for fires for light and cooking purposes, and the bones could be used for building structures and making tools.
A genetic study published in Science in August 2014 examined the remains of a large number of Thule people buried between ca.
