This paper examines Neo-Inuit (ca. AD 1250 to present) responses to the decreased temperatures of the Little Ice Age (LIA) climate change episode (ca. AD 1300e1900) in the Foxe Basin region of central Nunavut, Arctic Canada. Cooler temperatures (and increased sea ice) would be expected to have reduced both bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) and Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) habitats, forcing Neo-Inuit to refocus their hunting activities on landfast-ice-dwelling small seals (e.g., Pusa hispida) during winter months. However, an analysis of faunal remains from Foxe Basin's largest-known Neo-Inuit (Thule, historic and modern Inuit) archaeological site, Pingiqqalik (NgHd-1), reveals a longterm subsistence economy based largely on multi-seasonal walrus hunting. Two interrelated factors may explain these results: (1) a system of recurring polynyas provided a degree of ecological stability for local walrus populations, and (2) the development of a distinctive walrus caching regimeda form of which continues among the region's contemporary Inuitdallowed residents to adeptly exploit an ecological niche, thereby ensuring food security. Together, these factors likely insulated northern Foxe Basin Neo-Inuit from the worst effects of the LIA.
Although it is well known that modern Inuit in the resource-rich Foxe Basin region of Arctic Canada historically relied, and continue to rely, heavily on walrus, our knowledge of Thule Inuit walrus use in the area is limited. In this paper, new data is presented indicating walrus were being exploited intensively by Thule Inuit at NeHd-1 (Sanirajak), a winter site on the Foxe Basin coast of northeastern Melville Peninsula. Faunal remains from six large, discrete frontmiddens-each associated with a semisubterranean winter house-were examined. Of the specimens identified to species, walrus comprised nearly half of the aggregate sample; no archaeofaunal assemblage anywhere in the Canadian Arctic has produced so high a proportion. It is suggested that a pre-adaptation to organized, group hunting of both bowhead whales and walrus by Thule Inuit may have facilitated a year-round walrus-hunting industry centered on the acquisition and possible trade of reliably large amounts of meat, blubber, hides and ivory. An examination of walrus element frequencies at NeHd-1 indicated the need for a meat utility index (MUI) specific to walrus, and a modified meat utility index (MMUI) that takes into account the desirability of ivory. résumé Témoignages de la chasse intensive au morse chez les Inuit thuléens du nord-ouest du bassin de Foxe, Nunavut, Canada. On sait que les Inuits modernes de la région du bassin de Foxe dépendaient, et continuent de dépendre, principalement des morses. Cependant, notre connaissance de l'utilisation du morse par les Inuits thuléens est limitée. Nous présentons dans cet article de nouvelles données indiquant que le morse était exploité de manière intensive chez les Inuits thuléens à NeHd-1 (Sanirajak), un site hivernal dans la région du bassin de Foxe. Les restes de faune de six
An enduring debate in the field of Arctic archaeology has been the extent to which climate change impacted cultural developments in the past. Long-term culture change across the circumpolar Arctic was often highly dynamic, with episodes of rapid migration, regional abandonment, and—in some cases—the disappearance or wholesale replacement of entire cultural traditions. By the 1960s, researchers were exploring the possibility that warming episodes had positive effects on cold-adapted premodern peoples in the Arctic by ( a) reducing the extent of sea ice, ( b) expanding the size and range of marine mammal populations, and ( c) opening new waterways and hunting areas for marine-adapted human groups. Although monocausal climatic arguments for change are now regarded as overly simplistic, the growing threat of contemporary Arctic warming to Indigenous livelihoods has given wider relevance to research into long-term culture–climate interactions. With their capacity to examine deeper cultural responses to climate change, archaeologists are in a unique position to generate human-scale climate adaptation insights that may inform future planning and mitigation efforts. The exceptionally well-preserved cultural and paleo-ecological sequences of the Arctic make it one of the best-suited regions on Earth to address such problems. Ironically, while archaeologists employ an exciting and highly promising new generation of methods and approaches to examine long-term fragility and resilience in Arctic social-ecological systems, many of these frozen paleo-societal archives are fast disappearing due to anthropogenic warming.
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