“Place for a Walrus to Haul Out”: Marine Mammals and Polynya Archaeology in Northern Foxe Basin, Nunavut, Arctic Canada

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Across Inuit Nunangat (the traditional Inuit territories of what is now Canada), the Little Ice Age (LIA) climate change episode likely resulted in significant changes in seasonal sea-ice abundance, thereby affecting relatively delicate coastal food webs. In this paper, we present the results-to-date of recent survey and excavation at Uglit (NfHd-1), a Thule Inuit site in northern Foxe Basin, Nunavut. This includes data on seasonality, long-term use of animal resources—particularly small seals and walruses—and chronology (with AMS dating revealing an occupation from the fourteenth to early nineteenth centuries AD). The results support previous work in this region and elsewhere that Arctic hunting regimes situated near polynya systems were highly successful in weathering the effects of the LIA.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36143.0