The Archaeology of Old Nuulliit

The Archaeology of Old Nuulliit PDF Author: Mikkel Sørensen
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 8763531666
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
The Danish polar explorer Count Eigil Knuth succeeded in finding a Palaeo-Eskimo settlement named "Old Nuulliit" on the well-known Nuulliit site in the Thule area of Greenland. This site was settled by the first immigrants to Greenland: a hitherto unknown culture group, "the Old Nuulliit Culture," which was closely related to Palaeo-Eskimo culture groups in Alaska. Unfortunately, Knuth never published his findings, which became a mystery in Arctic archaeology. New investigations by author Mikkel Srensen shows that the site was settled repeatedly by the first immigrants, between 2500 BC and 1900 BC, and, in addition, that a total of ten family groups of the Pre-Dorset culture had settled there - the first real settlement of the Pre-Dorset culture in Greenland. The discoveries underscore the cultural and historical diversity of the Thule area, which are documented in this book by Sorensen.

The Archaeology of Old Nuulliit

The Archaeology of Old Nuulliit PDF Author: Mikkel Sørensen
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 8763531666
Category : Excavations (Archaeology)
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
The Danish polar explorer Count Eigil Knuth succeeded in finding a Palaeo-Eskimo settlement named "Old Nuulliit" on the well-known Nuulliit site in the Thule area of Greenland. This site was settled by the first immigrants to Greenland: a hitherto unknown culture group, "the Old Nuulliit Culture," which was closely related to Palaeo-Eskimo culture groups in Alaska. Unfortunately, Knuth never published his findings, which became a mystery in Arctic archaeology. New investigations by author Mikkel Srensen shows that the site was settled repeatedly by the first immigrants, between 2500 BC and 1900 BC, and, in addition, that a total of ten family groups of the Pre-Dorset culture had settled there - the first real settlement of the Pre-Dorset culture in Greenland. The discoveries underscore the cultural and historical diversity of the Thule area, which are documented in this book by Sorensen.

The Frozen Saqqaq Sites of Disko Bay, West Greenland - Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa (2400-900 BC)

The Frozen Saqqaq Sites of Disko Bay, West Greenland - Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa (2400-900 BC) PDF Author: Bjarne Grønnow
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 8763545616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 495

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Book Description
Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa are the only known sites of the Early Arctic Small Tool tradition in the Eastern Arctic, where all kinds of organic materials - wood, bone, baleen, hair, skin - are preserved in permafrozen culture layers. Together, the sites cover the entire Saqqaq era in Greenland (c. 2400-900 BC). Technological and contextual analyses of the excellently preserved archaeological materials from the frozen layers form the core of this publication. Bjarne Grønnow draws a new picture of a true Arctic pioneer society with a remarkably complex technology. The Saqqaq hunting tool kit, consisting of bows, darts, lances, harpoons, and throwing boards as well as kayak-like sea-going vessels, is described for the first time. A wide variety of hand tools and household utensils as well as lithic and organic refuse and animal bones were found on the intact floor of a midpassage dwelling at Qeqertasussuk. These materials provide entirely new information on the daily life and subsistence of the earliest hunting groups in Greenland. Comparative studies put the Saqqaq Culture into a broad cultural-historical perspective as one of the pioneer societies of the Eastern Arctic.

Out of the Cold

Out of the Cold PDF Author: Owen K. Mason
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 0932839568
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
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 Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic

The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic PDF Author: T. Max Friesen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190602821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1001

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Book Description
The North American Arctic was one of the last regions on Earth to be settled by humans, due to its extreme climate, limited range of resources, and remoteness from populated areas. Despite these factors, it holds a complex and lengthy history relating to Inuit, Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Yup'ik and Aleut peoples and their ancestors. The artifacts, dwellings, and food remains of these ancient peoples are remarkably well-preserved due to cold temperatures and permafrost, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct their lifeways with great accuracy. Furthermore, the combination of modern Elders' traditional knowledge with the region's high resolution ethnographic record allows past peoples' lives to be reconstructed to a level simply not possible elsewhere. Combined, these factors yield an archaeological record of global significance--the Arctic provides ideal case studies relating to issues as diverse as the impacts of climate change on human societies, the complex process of interaction between indigenous peoples and Europeans, and the dynamic relationships between environment, economy, social organization, and ideology in hunter-gatherer societies. In the The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, each arctic cultural tradition is described in detail, with up-to-date coverage of recent interpretations of all aspects of their lifeways. Additional chapters cover broad themes applicable to the full range of arctic cultures, such as trade, stone tool technology, ancient DNA research, and the relationship between archaeology and modern arctic communities. The resulting volume, written by the region's leading researchers, contains by far the most comprehensive coverage of arctic archaeology ever assembled.

Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes

Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes PDF Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0128160977
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 3542

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Book Description
Encyclopedia of the World’s Biomes is a unique, five volume reference that provides a global synthesis of biomes, including the latest science. All of the book's chapters follow a common thematic order that spans biodiversity importance, principal anthropogenic stressors and trends, changing climatic conditions, and conservation strategies for maintaining biomes in an increasingly human-dominated world. This work is a one-stop shop that gives users access to up-to-date, informative articles that go deeper in content than any currently available publication. Offers students and researchers a one-stop shop for information currently only available in scattered or non-technical sources Authored and edited by top scientists in the field Concisely written to guide the reader though the topic Includes meaningful illustrations and suggests further reading for those needing more specific information

Waterworlds

Waterworlds PDF Author: Kirsten Hastrup
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1782389474
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
In one form or another, water participates in the making and unmaking of people’s lives, practices, and stories. Contributors’ detailed ethnographic work analyzes the union and mutual shaping of water and social lives. This volume discusses current ecological disturbances and engages in a world where unbounded relationalities and unsettled frames of orientation mark the lives of all, anthropologists included. Water emerges as a fluid object in more senses than one, challenging anthropologists to foreground the mutable character of their objects of study and to responsibly engage with the generative role of cultural analysis.

Inventing Greenland

Inventing Greenland PDF Author: Bert De Jonghe
Publisher: Actar D, Inc.
ISBN: 1638408068
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Inventing Greenland is a critical and timely assemblage of stories highlighting a shifting landscape – one born from the imagination, projections, and ambitions of a wide range of actors. Geared towards a design audience, this book combines spatial sensibilities with Greenland's local cultural, social, and environmental realities. Inventing Greenland is a critical and timely assemblage of stories highlighting a shifting landscape – one born from the imagination, projections, and ambitions of a wide range of actors. Today, especially within the design discipline, there is a lack of understanding of Greenland as a complex constellation of perspectives, histories, and forces. This book aims to fill that knowledge vacuum. Geared towards architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, this book combines spatial sensibilities with local cultural, social, and environmental realities. More specifically, spatial sensibility is a way of responding to and reading beyond a diverse array of relationships in the built environment. Furthermore, Inventing Greenland provides a broad understanding of a unique island undergoing intense transformation while drawing attention to its historical and current challenges and emerging opportunities. Distinctly, each individual story is anchored to a common thread and interest in architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism. Such discourse may serve to prepare designers at large as they take on projects in a rapidly developing Arctic. In the past, the extremeness of Greenland's landscape did not impede the first immigration of Inuit hunting tribes, Norsemen from becoming Greenland Vikings, and European explorers from searching for new trade routes and eventually reaching the North Pole. Every single one of them read, saw, and understood the Greenlandic landscape differently, while projecting their hopes and dreams onto new landscapes, seascapes, and icescapes. As will become apparent, similar hopes and dreams of the early settlers and explorers continue in postcolonial times in a different set of actors, among them the U.S. military, foreign investors, and an Inuit-run government.

The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe

The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe PDF Author: Bjarne Grønnow
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788763512626
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
An important part of the heritage of Count Eigil Knuth (1903-1996) is his archaeological archive contaning contextual information on prehistoric sites gathered during six decades of research in High Arctic Greenland. The finds and observations are a key to the understanding of human life under extreme conditions in a long-term perspective and represent a unique piece of evidence concerning the early cultural history of the Eastern Arctic. Knuth's expeditions from 1932 to 1995 took him to Greenland and Canada, in particular High Arctic Greenland. In a number of important articles Knuth published the findings dating back to the earliest human settlement in Greenland. However, he never managed to present the complete body of information and results from his many investigations. The present authors have thus compiled a computer database on the basis on his archive, which constitutes the starting point of the present book. The book focuses on Knuth's most substantial contribution to archaeology: the prehistory of Peary Land and adjacent areas. In the catalog, emphasis has been placed on topographical and architectural information, site structure, artefact statistics and radiocarbon dates. A total of 154 archaeological sites are presented. Fifty-one sites with a total of 244 features are Independence I sites (c. 2460-1860 cal. BC), twenty-three sites with a total of 416 features belong to Independence II (c. 900-400 cal. BC) and sixty-three sites with a total of 626 features are of Thule origin (c. 1400-1500 ca. AD). This study presents some new information on the faunal material from Peary Land based on Christyann Darwent's recent analyses as well as new data on the dwelling features on the Adam C. Knuth Site, which was visited by a multidisciplinary team in 2001. It also offers an introduction presenting an overview and evaluation of Knuth's remarkable curriculum vitae as an independent arctic archaeologist. In the concluding chapters some basic statistics on the archaeological sites are presented. We evaluate Knuth's radiocarbon datings of the Independence I, Independence II and Thule cultures in High Arctic Greenland, and settlement distributions and settlement patterns for the three cultures represented in Peary Land are discussed.

Encyclopedia of the Arctic

Encyclopedia of the Arctic PDF Author: Mark Nuttall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136786805
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 2306

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Book Description
With detailed essays on the Arctic's environment, wildlife, climate, history, exploration, resources, economics, politics, indigenous cultures and languages, conservation initiatives and more, this Encyclopedia is the only major work and comprehensive reference on this vast, complex, changing, and increasingly important part of the globe. Including 305 maps. This Encyclopedia is not only an interdisciplinary work of reference for all those involved in teaching or researching Arctic issues, but a fascinating and comprehensive resource for residents of the Arctic, and all those concerned with global environmental issues, sustainability, science, and human interactions with the environment.

Nipisat - a Saqqaq Culture Site in Sisimiut, Central West Greenland

Nipisat - a Saqqaq Culture Site in Sisimiut, Central West Greenland PDF Author: Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788763512640
Category : Antiquities
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
From 1989 to 1994, more than 200 m2 were excavated at the Saqqaq site of Nipisat, situated on a small island 15 km south of Sisimiut. The excellent preservation conditions for organic material, and the fact that some of the stone artefacts were not previously known from the Saqqaq Culture, were the main reasons for the excavation. More than 70,000 bone fragments, 20,000 flakes and 1,000 artefacts were recovered. A total of 33 dates, making this site one of the best dated in the entire Arctic, reveal that Nipisat was occupied continuously for nearly 1,500 years. Although protruding bedrock disturbed the stratigraphy and several lenses of crushed shells interrupted the layers, three different chronological phases could be identified. Phase 1 is dated by eight 14C dates ranging from 2020 to 1740 BC (cal). Phase 2 partly overlaps, but is mainly younger than phase 1 and dated by five 14C dates to 1860-1325 BC (cal). Phase 3 is dated by 16 14C dates to 1310-810 BC (cal). One date was very young (520 BC (cal)) and problematic because of extreme oscillations of the 14C curve. From phase 1 there is a mid-passage structure with a box-hearth. A ring of flagstones surrounds the structure. From phase 2 there is a well-defined box-hearth. There was no clear outline of a tent ring surrounding the hearth, which could be due to later disturbances in phase 3. No dwelling structures were recognised from phase 3. Instead several sherds of soapstone were recorded, indicating the use of blubber for light or cooking. From phase 1 and 2 the tool types are well known from other Saqqaq sites in Greenland and Arctic Canada e.g. small harpoon endblades, projectile points, knife blades, scrapers, burins etc. and needles, flint flakers, harpoon heads, wedges etc. But from phase 3 previously unknown types were recorded. A new tool kit for sea mammal hunting is seen in the very sturdy harpoon or lance head made of antler. In addition there are many different kinds of barbed leisters or spears. New types of bevelled harpoon heads, bevelled knife blades and bevelled projectile points, all made of killiaq (silicified slate), were also registered. The faunal assemblage of Nipisat yielded 28,823 identified bone fragments representing at least 42 species of fish, birds and mammals. The fish remains, comprising c. 2% of the faunal material, consisted nearly entirely (98%) of fairly large sized cod (). The bird remains comprise c. 47% of the material and derive from at least 24 bird species. Gulls are the dominant group (c. 54% of the bird remains) followed by eider ducks (spp.) (24%) and spp. (13%) presumably barnacle geese (), while auks () were found in lower frequencies. The most spectacular finds, however, were skeletal remains of subadult great auks () from the oldest phase. A total of 60 presumed whooper swan () remains constitute the hitherto largest, northernmost and oldest occurrence in Greenland. At least 14 mammalian species were identified revealing a surprisingly large proportion of caribou () (51% of the mammal remains) for a coastal site. Seals accounted for 45%, with the common seal () as the absolutely dominant component. Other marine mammals were walrus () and harbour porpoise (), which played an important but minor role. Polar bear () hunting was documented by the presence of four fragments from the youngest phase. Saqqaq people were accompanied by fairly large and robust dogs (). Nipisat, the first larger Saqqaq site to be excavated from the Open Water Area was a coastal site and through all occupation phases the game animals of the surrounding waters and fjords were hunted. For more than a millennium, the site was visited briefly from time to time, at least during spring, summer and early autumn. Staging geese were captured during spring. In June and July the breeding birds were exploited for their eggs and easily accessible young, as documented by large numbers of juvenile gull bones in particular. The common seal hunting specialised on immature individuals caught primarily during their first summer on the breeding grounds. The inhabitants at Nipisat also hunted caribou on the mainland. The age structure and sex distribution of the caribou remains primarily reflect stalking. Selected body parts, especially the fore and hind legs and the heads, were transported to the island for raw material, meat filleting and further processing for marrow extraction and fat rendering. The exploitation of fauna through the entire occupation period was remarkably constant with respect to choice of game animal and the selected age groups. Although eiders were more abundant in phase 1 (36%) than in phase 3 (17%) while gulls increased from 43 to 61% in the same time period. The same trend was found valid for geese, which increased over time while the importance of auks decreased. Harbour porpoise seem to have decreased while walrus increased in relative importance through time. Caribou seem to be of greater importance in phase 3 with 55% compared to 45% in phase 1. The slight shift in preferred resources may be explained by fluctuating abundance and availability of the game species combined with the development of new hunting tools. Based on the new investigations in the Sisimiut District, the gap between Saqqaq and Dorset Culture in Central West Greenland has been diminished. Although resource exploitation at the site seems to have been very stable through all three phases, there are aspects of cultural change bridging the transition from Saqqaq to Dorset Cultures. The introduction of bevelled tools, sturdy harpoon or lance heads and the abandonment of the bow and arrow in phase 3, show cultural affiliation with Dorset technology. This is also true in terms of lithic raw material preference, the introduction of soapstone artefacts and the absence of dwelling structures with a well-defined box-hearth. At the same time it looks like, the central occupation area for the Saqqaq Culture shifted southwards from the Qeqertarsuup Tunua area towards Sisimiut and Nuuk.