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The Thule Tradition is an Inuit ancestor that spread across the Arctic from ca 2000 to 500 BP. There are several stages of the Thule tradition: Old Bering Sea Stage, Punuk Stage, and Birnirk Stage. These stages represent variations of the Thule Tradition as it expanded over time. The Thule Tradition replaced the Dorset Tradition in the Eastern arctic and introduced both kayaks and umiaks, or skin covered boats, into the archaeological record as well as developed new uses for iron and copper and demonstrated advanced harpoon technology and use of bowhead whales, the largest animal in the Arctic. The Thule tradition descends from the Norton tradition and existed from about 700 BC until the time of European contact in the 1600s and is said to have begun near the Bering Strait on islands such as St. Lawrence and Okvik Island Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..
Around AD 1000, the Thule Tradition expanded into the eastern part of the Arctic, settling in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic coast by the 1200s. Some of the first Thule colonists relocated to coastal Canadian regions where bowhead whales were scarce because of the large amount of ice, shallow water, or limited food and resources. They were forced to adapt to consuming sea and land mammals, as well as fish that were available in the area[1]. Due to the immense amount of hunting of large sea mammals, fish, and caribou, there was an increase in specialized tool making. Hunting and domestic tools were very elaborate and apparently took a significant amount of time to create. The same amount of time and care was not put into the art of the Thule people. In the spread eastward, the homes were built more efficiently to preserve energy. This tradition survived and grew over the course of the next several centuries[2]. There were differences between the areas to which the tradition migrated. Houses in the more eastern region were more above ground and round with stone platforms to sleep on. The shape and support for the buildings came from whale bones. Eastern populations preferred soapstone domestic items instead of pottery and developed the use of dogs to pull sleds. There are several theories regarding migration of the Thule people which occurred during the Medieval Warm Period between AD 900 and 1200. This warm period caused the melting of the ice increasing the number of whales around Greenland and Alaska. Whales like to travel near the ice because the open water near shore was essential for mammals like whales to survive in and as it melted it made the whales swim further away from the hunters making it too dangerous to hunt them during the warm months. The increase in open water called for technical modifications to be made in order to continue to hunt the whales[3].
Tools
[edit]The different stages of the Thule Tradition are distinguished by their different styles of making tools and art. The later stages, Punuk and Birnirk, have greater representation in the archaeological record and are said to have spread further and lasted longer than their predecessor, the Old Bering Sea Stage[4]. The Thule people are well known for their technological advances in transportation and hunting techniques and tools. The harpoon played a very significant role in whaling and the Thule people made several types of harpoon points out of whale bone. They also made inflated harpoon line floats to help them hunt larger prey.
Old Bering Sea Stage 200 BC to 500 AD
[edit]The Old Bering Sea Stage of the Thule Tradition is characterized by polished slate tools such as lanceolate knives, projectile points, and the ulu knife. The people also made a crude form of pottery and there was much use of bone and antlers to use as heads on harpoons, needles, scrapers, ice picks, and shovels. Many of these tools were used for more efficient hunting of larger sea mammals. The technology of the people of the Old Bering Sea Stage was unique due to the dots, circles, and lines used to decorate their tools[5]. There is evidence for social stratification in the Old Bering Sea Stage Thule culture. Tools and other intricate artifacts were found with various graves indicating a person of high status.
Punuk and Birnirk Stages ca AD 800 to 1400
[edit]The Old Bering Sea Stage yielded to simpler forms of design in the art of the Punuk, which is known for their wood and bone fishing equipment and the elaborate detail in their ivory tools. 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 Birnirk people used many of the same hunting methods and technology but there was no art. There is very little evidence of tool or weapon decoration. The little art that was present in the Birnirk stage was limited to clay pots[6]. During this time period whaling was a significant part of the culture. There were highly trained individuals who exemplified leadership and came together to use their skills to obtain sustenance and domestic materials for the community.
Subsistence
[edit]The Classic Thule tradition relied heavily on the bowhead whale for survival because bowhead whales swim slowly and sleep near the water‘s surface. Bowhead whales served many purposes for the Thule people. 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. The Thule people survived predominantly on fish, large sea mammals and caribou outside of the whaling communities. Because they had advanced transportation technology they had access to a wider range of food sources. There is superb faunal preservation in Thule sites due to a late prehistoric date as well as an arctic environment. Most of the bowhead artifacts were harvested from live bowhead whales[7]. The Thule developed an expertise in hunting and utilizing as many parts of an animal as possible. This knowledge combined with their growing wealth of tools and modes of transportation allowed the Thule people to thrive. . They whaled together where one person would shoot the whale with the harpoon and the others would throw the floats on it and they all transferred the whale to land to butcher it together to share with the entire community. Their unity played a significant role in the length of time they thrived in the Arctic.
Classic Thule AD 1100 to 1400
[edit]Classic Thule developed when the Thule people began migrating to the southern and eastern areas of the Arctic. This culture is renowned for its incredible developments in hunting skills, efficiency, and technology and did not place much emphasis on art. There were slight artistic details on household things such as combs but it was very simple, linear designs featuring people without appendages, animals, or symbols that represented the human ties with the supernatural world. The term “Classic Thule” was originally coined by archaeologist Alan McCartney in regards to the population that existed between AD 1100 and 1400 and featured “winter settlements that depended on bowhead whaling, not only for food, but for building materials and artifacts as well[8]. The Classic Thule people built large skin tents to house up to 25 people each during the summer and large sod and whale bone houses in the winter. During this time, the neighboring communities had continuous trade between one another which led to the spread of the tradition and introduced materials such as copper and iron. The source of the iron came from both meteoric resources as well as trade from the Norse expansion and was used in the creation of projectile points through a process called epi-metallurgy which made stronger, harder, more efficient points. The metal enabled the Thule people to work with more materials to make more wood and bone tools. The only problem they faced was a lack of a steady supply of metal.
Post Classic Thule AD 1400 to European Contact
[edit]Post Classic Thule tradition existed from AD 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. This is believed to be caused by the “Little Ice Age” that occurred between AD 1400 and 1600 which limited the use of boats and amount of whales present in the area. By AD 1600 the people had moved on and abandoned the High Arctic due to the severe climate changes[9]. The Thule Eskimos who lived near open water were not as affected by the decrease in temperature[10]. When the Little Ice Age occurred the Thule people were forced to move south although the exact reason why is still being argued about. This time period is believed to have been a time full of struggle due to the change in climate and the decreasing amounts of food they had access to because their source of guaranteed provisions decreased forcing them to rely on smaller game that they may or may not have been as familiar with.
Thule Sites and Projects
[edit]There are several major archaeological research projects that have been conducted on the Thule culture including the Torngat Archaeological Project, Somerset Island, The Clachan site, Coronation Gulf, Nelson River, Baffin Island, Victoria Island, the Bell site, Devon Island- QkHn-12, and the Cape York projects.
Selected Books and Monographs
[edit]Bonvillain, Nancy. The Inuit. Chelsea House Publishers, 1995 Dumond, Don. The Eskimos and Aleuts. Westview Press, 1977 Schledermann, Peter. The Thule Tradition in Northern Labrador. Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1971 Tuck, James. Newfoundland and Labrador Prehistory. Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1984
References
[edit]- ^ McCartney, Allen P and Savelle, James M. Artic Anthropology. Thule Eskimo Whaling in the Central Canadian Arctic. Vol. 22, No. 2 (1985), pp. 40
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. 197
- ^ McCartney, Allen P and Savelle, James M. Artic Anthropology. Thule Eskimo Whaling in the Central Canadian Arctic. Vol. 22, No. 2 (1985), pp. 39
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. P. 196
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. P 208
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. P. 196
- ^ McCartney, Allen P and Savelle, James M. World Anthropology. Arctic Anthropology Vol. 30, No. 3 (1999), pp.437
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991 p 207
- ^ Fagan, Brian M. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. 2nd Ed. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. p 210
- ^ McCartney, Allen P and Savelle, James M. Artic Anthropology. Thule Eskimo Whaling in the Central Canadian Arctic. Vol. 22, No. 2 (1985), pp. 40