Volume 8, 1955 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL. VITI. NO. I THE ARCTIC CIRCULAR 4and slender, pointed, triangular blades of specialized type recallingforms characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic ofEurasia but not previously found in America. Though driftwood musthave been used extensively for harpoon shafts and many other purposes,it Seems to have completely disappeared, for we did not find a scrapof wood at the site. Also, the bird and mammal bones and the ivory Ibone, and antler artifacts a!"e unl,£ormly patinated and weathered, instriking oontrast to the fresh, well preserved similar material fromthe Sad1ermiut site. There are indications that thia and other Dorsetand pre~Dorset "ites in Canada and Greenland were occupied at a timewhen the climate was milder thz.ll today. - 0 On the whole. this isone of the most promising Dorset !lites J. know of, and excavationsthere, which we plan to resume ir.. 195~, should reveal for the firsttime an adequate, rounded pictu!"e of DOl"£et material culture. Asecond, smaller Dors et site, whi h seems to cE..ffer somewhat fromthe one just described. was Iound ~'u:d.ed l.>cncat:. the surface not farfrom the Sad1ermiut site.In the course of our work partic:u1ar emphasis was given toecology. This included counti,;'.g and identifyiag as many ma.mma1 bonesas possible from the various cuts (bire!, fish, and other animal remainswere brought back for identification). A d"t2.Ued study was made ofmidden stratification and content, soU deposition, and sod co ver, forbearing on possible climatic and physiographic changes; this involvedcollecting samples of soil, SOQ, bone, and othe:r organic materials forpollen, chamica1, and radiocarbon analysis. Close attention to suchbackground factors should provide valuable inforrnztion on the environmentalconditions affecting these two distinct Eskimo populations at thesa~e locality, one of them dating fron. t~e 17th to 19th cent'lry, theother probably more th= 1, 000 years ole!.We counted over 45, 000 mammal·bones from the various cutsat the Dorset and Sad1ermiut siteG Cl.nd made species identificationson over 6,000 of them (phalanges. Gome rEJs, and vertebrae being toodifficult to identify in the field). The reBult waf! the demonstrationof some strikir..g differences in the food eccnomy of the Dorset andSad1ermiut people, as well as seasonal differences in occupation ofvarious part8 of the sites, au s(.:.ov.':t"'. :,,,-;n