Comparing Lithic Procurement and Use Within the Foxe Basin, Nunavut

Summary

This paper presents a systematic review and update on the nature of stone tool use in the Foxe Basin region throughout the Paleo-Inuit period (2,500 BCE-1,600CE). The Foxe Basin was previously thought to have been a core area of ecological stability/predictability that supported an uninterrupted occupation throughout the Paleo-Inuit timespan. Given the untenability of the core area model and that populations fluctuated over time and space, a reevaluation of lithic technologies and their change through time can help distinguish how the transfer of cultural information took place, and in turn how social life responded to drastic demographic change. Paleo-Inuit use of stone tools was a varied and highly skilled discipline involving intimate knowledge of the land, the properties of stone, and the appropriate ways of crafting tools. Using data from recent surveys and excavations, this talk seeks to identify and contrast patterns of lithic raw material procurement and tool production, and their relationship with key demographic changes that took place throughout Pre-Dorset and Dorset occupations of the region.

Cite this Record

Comparing Lithic Procurement and Use Within the Foxe Basin, Nunavut. Kyle Forsythe, Pierre Desrosiers, James Savelle, Arthur Dyke. Presented at The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Washington, DC. 2018 ( tDAR id: 443461)

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Spatial Coverage

min long: -169.453; min lat: 50.513 ; max long: -49.043; max lat: 72.712 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22561