Early Arctic Cultures
Environment
Culture History
Arctic Cultures
In general, Aleuts and Eskimos exploited
aquatic resources in the Arctic and along
the Alaskan coast, while Algonquian- and
Athabaskan speakers fished and hunted
caribou, elk, moose, and other land
animals inland in the Sub-Arctic and along
the Sub-Arctic Atlantic Coast.
Aleuts and Eskimos are the most recent
of all native peoples of the Americas.
Language Families
Aleut was spoken in the Aleutian Islands onto
the Alaska Peninsula, and Eskimo from about
Kodiak Island around the coast all the way to
Greenland.
Despite the stereotype for the Arctic of the furclad, happy Eskimos hunting seals in a flat, icecovered landscape (Nanook of the North), there
were diverse landscapes and societies
throughout the Arctic.
Nyla, wife of Nanook
Environment
Alaska and the Yukon are rugged areas crossed
by mountain ranges enclosing rough, swampy
lowlands.
Useful terms include:
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Arctic Slope;
the Brooks, Alaska, and Aleutian ranges;
Alaska Peninsula;
Aleutian Island chain;
the Yukon and Kuskokwin rivers;
Bering Sea;
Norton Sound;
Kodiak Island.
Environment
A great central
lowland stretches
eastward from the
Yukon, with a large
basin around
Hudson Bay.
Much of this area,
such as the
Canadian Shield, is
rocky and devoid of
much vegetation.
To the north of the
mainland is the
Canadian Arctic
Archipelago in the
Arctic Ocean, which
is largely covered
with permanent ice
or is barren.
The Arctic roughly coincides with the
treeless tundra and ice zone in the north
and the Sub-Arctic with the boreal forests
to the south. Winters in both areas are
very cold, with a somewhat longer summer
in the Sub-Arctic.
Tundra in the interior of Prince of Wales Island.
Caribou, musk-ox, hares, lemmings, arctic
fox, wolves, bears, lots of nesting birds,
and abundant aquatic resources (fish,
seals, whales, walrus) occur to the north,
while moose, woodland caribou and
buffalo, migrating birds, and many smaller
animals occur to the south.
Coast of Prince of Wales Island and sea ice in July.
Arctic Poppies
Arctic Willow
Caribou, Musk ox, Arctic hare
Arctic Fox, lemmings, Seals,
and Polar bear
Culture History
The Paleo-Arctic Tradition (c.80005000 BC)
Hunter-gatherer cultures in Early Holocene far
northwestern North America during a period of
increasing environmental diversity and change.
Since coastal sea mammal hunting base camps were
buried by rising sea levels, the tradition is known mostly
from small, inland hunting sites (at least this is an
hypothesis). However, specialized sea mammal-hunting
artifacts are not present.
Typical stone artifacts include microblades, wedgeshaped microcores, leafshaped bifaces, scrapers, and
gravers. Organic material (bone) has not survived.
Well-known site is Anangula on the Aleutian Chain.
Anangula Site
The Anangula archeological site is located among
the Aleutian Islands, which extend southwest
outward from the Alaskan peninsula. It is believed
to be one of the original homelands of the ancient
Eskimo tribe called the Aleuts.
The Anangula archeological site is a part of the
Anangula island.
– The Anangula site was first recognized in 1938 by a man
with the last name of Laughlin.
– After the initial discovery, there was no significant
research done on the site until 1952.
– During 1952, R. F. Black and a research team revisited
the Anangula Island and did more extensive
archeological research.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/northamerica/anangula_site.html
Anangula site
The current water depth between Anangula island and
Umnak island is about 11 meters.
The sea levels of 8,000 years ago were approximately 20
meters less than the contemporary. Therefore there was
dry land between the islands.
This explains how the people living in the Anangula site
were not actually secluded on the small island of Anangula
and could easily travel for resources. Evidence shows that
the islands all were connected by stable land eastward to
the Alaskan peninsula.
The Anangula site was located on the southern end of the
Anangula Island, which by landscape provides protection
from the weather of the Bering sea. The landscape
surrounding in most other directions protected the site as
well.
Anangula site, Ananiuliak Island
Anangula Site
http://www.nps.gov/akso/CR/AKRCultural/CulturalMain/2ndLevel/NHL/NHLAnangula.htm
Coastal Adaptations on the Pacific
Coast (c.4000 BC - AD 1000)
Once sea levels stabilized c. 4000 BC, sea coastal
adaptations (ocean fish and marine mammals like
sea otters, hair and fur seals, and whales).
Area of greatest concentration is in the area of
Kodiak and Unimak islands.
Both Aleuts and Pacific Eskimos involved. Although
there are differences between them, they both had
two-person skin kayaks for open water hunting, and
multi-barbed harpoons for taking large sea
mammals.
Coastal Adaptations on the Pacific Coast
(c.4000 BC - AD 1000)
Three archaeological traditions have been identified:
– Ocean Bay tradition
– Kodiak tradition
– Koniag culture
Ocean Bay Tradition
(4000 BC - AD 1000). Marine mammal
hunters in the Kodiak Island area.
Kodiak Tradition
(4000 BC - AD 1000). A more southern
derivative of Ocean Bay composed of sea
mammal hunting, salmon fishing, and caribou
hunting Eskimos.
Known for its slate tools, such as the ulu. In its
latest stage (Kachemak, c. 500 BC - AD 1000),
there is a greater variety of bone and slate
artifacts (e.g., net weights, stone lamps), greater
site densities and midden accumulation (i.e.,
more people), and more elaborate mortuary
rituals (i.e., greater social complexity).
Ulu
Replica
Modern ulu
BASALT tools
Photo courtesy http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/
Koniag Culture
(AD 1000-historic), which becomes the
historic Eskimo along the Pacific Coast.
Kodiak Island
Aleut Town site
Harpoon
Heads
Aleutian Tradition
(c.2500 BC - AD 1800)
The main archaeological tradition on the
Aleutian islands. These were sea mammal
hunting and fishing Aleuts.
A core and flake tradition, with bifacial projectile
points and knives, adzes and ulu blades, chisels,
and awls (etc.), that remained fairly stable
throughout the life of the tradition.
There are also elaborate bone harpoon heads,
and bone and ivory ornaments, whose shifting
styles help date sites.
A well-known site is Chaluka on Umnak island.
Chaluka site, Umnak Island
Arctic Small Tool Tradition in the
West (c.2000-800 BC)
Most likely an intrusive ancestral Eskimo sea mammal and
caribou hunting, salmon fishing culture from Siberia that
spread along the Alaskan coast from the Alaska Peninsula
in the south to the Brooks Range in the north.
A new toolkit of microblades (for multi-component tools);
also scrapers, gravers, adze blades, etc.). Organics are
poorly known.
These people may have introduced the bow and arrow
into the Americas.
Sites include small camps and larger base camps with
semi-subterranean, sod roofed houses.
Arctic Small Tool
A fragment of a flaked
stone end-blade (i.e, the
sharp blade that would be
mounted at the tip of a
bone, antler or ivory
harpoon or spear), found
lying on the surface within
a rock cache as it has for
well over 2000 years.
Arctic Small Tool
A complete flaked stone end-blade from the Arctic Small Tool tradition.
Other Artifacts: Toggle harpoons
Toggle harpoons
Animal Effigy: Polar bear carved
from ivory.
Settlement of the Eastern Arctic
(c. 2000 BC)
Arctic Small Tool tradition folks were also
the first people to push eastward across
the Arctic to the coast of Greenland. They
have been separated into two phases
whose interrelationship remains unclear.
Independence I (2000-1700 BC).
Pre-Dorset (1700-900/600 BC).
Independence I (2000-1700 BC)
Very mobile hunters in the High Arctic who
subsisted mainly on musk ox, but also on birds,
fish, seals (etc.).
They probably consisted of tiny hunting bands of
4-6 people who lived in musk-ox hide covered
tents, for stone rings are found at some sites.
A large summer surplus of food was probably stored for the
long winter.
Besides typical Arctic Small Tool tradition stone artifacts,
they also had bone needles, arrowheads, and non-toggling
harpoons.
This Arctic Small Tool tradition (Independence I culture) tent ring is referred to as
a "mid-passage" house. The outer ring of rocks would have weighed down the
edges of a tent. The "mid-passage" is formed by the parallel lines of rocks
dividing the interior of the house; at the center of the mid-passage there is a
small hearth or fireplace in which willow twigs or driftwood would have been
burned.
Pre-Dorset (1700-900/600 BC)
Arctic Small Tool tradition people who moved
eastward south of Independence I people. They
were concentrated in the Hudson Strait and Fore
Basin region.
West of Hudson Bay, they were mainly inland
land hunters and fisher folk, who only
occasionally hunted on the coast.
In the Hudson Bay region and to the east, they
were sea mammal hunters and ocean fishers
who also hunted musk ox, caribou, polar bear,
and smaller mammals.
This Arctic Small Tool tradition (Pre-Dorset culture) structure is only evident on the
surface by the patch of lichen and moss that was nourished by the scraps of food,
charcoal, etc., left behind by the people who lived here. Although they can't be seen
in this photograph, numerous tiny stone artifacts were found in and around that
patch of vegetation.
Archaic Hunter-Gatherers in the
Sub-Arctic (c. 5000 BC-historic)
As glacial ice retreated northward, plants,
animals, and people spread northward.
At least three major groups were involved.
– Northern Archaic 9c.4000 BC-historic).
– Shield Archaic (c.5000 BC-historic).
– Maritime Archaic (c.7000 BC-historic).
Northern Archaic
(c.4000 BC-historic)
Athabascans who were adapting to the
changing Holocene environment in inland
areas for the most part in far northwestern
North America (e.g., Alaska, Yukon).
They hunted caribou and waterfowl with
side-notched projectile points.
Shield Archaic (c.5000 BC-historic)
A basic northern Algonquian-speaking
forest culture centered on the Canadian
Shield that fished and hunted caribou in
the north and elk, moose, and deer in the
south.
Some lived along the tree line to take
advantage of both environments.
They had lanceolate projectile points,
bifacial knives, scrapers, adzes, etc.
Maritime Archaic
(c.7000 BC-historic)
More socially complex Algonquian speaking huntergatherer-fishers who lived along the Atlantic Coast from
Maine to Labrador.
They had a seasonal subsistence cycle that exploited sea
mammals along the coast in the summer and inland land
resources (elk, moose, caribou, etc.) in the winter.
Social Complexity
Their higher degree of social complexity is apparent in
numerous rich graves covered with red ocher (thus the
Red Paint people).
Included as grave offerings were elaborate bone points,
foreshafts, and socketed toggling harpoons, shell bead
ornaments, and antler, bone, and ivory daggers.
Some people were buried in earthen mounds that date to
c.6000 BC.
Longhouses were built at some sites late in the tradition.
Port aux Choir in Newfoundland is a famous sea
mammal hunting base camp.
These people were probably pushed southward after c.
1000 BC by PreDorset and Dorset Eskimos who were
moving southward from the Arctic.
Norton, Dorset, and Thule
c.1000 BC-AD 800
Norton Tradition of the Western Arctic
– Choris 1000-500 BC,
Norton 500 BC-AD 800
Iputiak AD 1-800
Dorset Culture of the Eastern Arctic
– c. 700 BC-AD 1800
Thule (Inuit/Eskimo) Tradition in Alaska
– After c, AD 900
– Thule Expansion Eastward
The Norton Tradition of the Western Arctic
(c. 1000 BC-AD 800)
The Norton tradition, which is divided into three cultures
(Choris 1000-500 BC, Norton 500 BC-AD 800, Ipiutak
AD 1-800), is characterized by:
– Major changes in subsistence strategies: a more maritime focus,
year round sea mammal hunting both in open water and through
winter ice, intensive fishing; caribou and small mammal hunting
remain important among Choris and Norton people.
– First definitive shift toward establishing permanent settlements
on the seacoast; substantial year-round semi-subterranean
houses; dense
long-term occupation (hundreds of houses
occur at some sites, such as
Point Hope).
– An Arctic Small Tool tradition tool base except microblades and
the burin technology is gone; first pottery vessels (fibertempered, stamped pottery from Asia) and stone lamps for
burning oil; toggling harpoons and polished slate implements.
Ipiutak Culture
Burial skull of the Ipiutak culture,
Alaska, with artificial eyes of
jade and ivory.
Ipiutak style Mask,
walrus ivory,
National Museum,
Copenhagen
Dorset Culture
top left to right: flaked stone end-blade
to fit in the tip of a harpoon head; 3
harpoon heads; a so-called "spatula"
carving; bottom: a harpoon foreshaft
and harpoon head.
Thule Culture
Bowhead whale mandible
(jawbone) used as rafters for
winter semi-subterranean
houses.
Truelove Lowland, Devon Island,
and site QkHn-12
QkHn-12
Thule Artifacts
Top row from left to right: Harpoon
head; harpoon foreshaft; two fragments
of a harpoon socket piece; harpoon ice
pick; arrowhead; Dorset culture barbed
projectile. Above scale: Pre-Dorset
projectile points.
Small artifacts below scale from left to
right: Pendant; ivory garming piece (?);
adze head.
Bottom row from left to right: Seal
scratcher; wooden implement; sling
handle; gull hook; ulu (?) handle;
soapstone sherd; man's knife handle.
Sources
http://watarts.uwaterloo.ca/ANTHRO/rwpar
k/ArcticArchStuff/Environment.html
http://daphne.palomar.edu/ais130/Arcticart
.htm
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/ANTHRO/rwp
ark/ArcticArchStuff/Dorset.html
http://www.alaskanartifacts.com/