Building a Database to Understand the Architecture of Arctic Wooden House Remains

Summary

Western Arctic archaeological sites hold the remains of wooden houses occupied during the second millennium AD by ancestors of the present Inuit people. Although the permafrost helps to maintain these features in excellent condition, the giant puzzle resulting from the collapse of the frame makes it hard to understand their original architecture. During the ArcticCHAR project, we excavated a house at Kuukpak (Northwest Territories, Canada) in 2014 and 2016. Facing the complexity of this feature, we created a new strategy to help us interpret this tangle of wooden remains. Combining both computer techniques (i.e. G.I.S, photogrammetry) with traditional field recording methods required a robust database to connect all of these data. In this paper, we explain the design of the database and the technical choices we faced during its creation and implementation, with one of our main goals being to use open-source software. Without a doubt, this methodology will help us to understand the building techniques of these impressive Western Arctic houses. Additionally, the use of open-source products will ensure the reproducibility of our method.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20892