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Radiocarbon Evidence for Fourteenth-Century Dorset Occupation in the Eastern North American Arctic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2019

T. Max Friesen Open the ORCID record for T. Max Friesen [Opens in a new window]
T. Max Friesen*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 19 Russell St., Toronto, ONM5S 2S2, Canada
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

ArcticarchaeologyNunavutDorsetPaleo-InuitThuleInuitThule migrationinteractionArctiquearchéologieNunavutDorsétienPaléo-InuitThuléenInuitmigration thuléenneinteraction
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 222 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

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