Thule people
The Thule or proto-Inuit were the precursors of all modern Inuit and Yupik peoples. They developed in coastal Alaska by 1000 AD and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture who had previously inhabited the region. The appellation "Thule" originates from the location of Thule, now known as Pituffik, in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden.
Evidence supports the idea that the Thule were in contact with the Vikings, who had reached the shores of Canada in the 11th century as part of the Norse colonization of North America. In Viking sources, these peoples are called the Skrælingjar.
Some Thule migrated southward, in the "Second Expansion" or "Second Phase". By the 13th or 14th century, the Thule had occupied an area inhabited until then by the Dorset, and by the 15th century, the Thule had replaced the Dorset.
Intensified contacts with Europeans began in the 18th century. Compounded by the already disruptive effects of the "Little Ice Age", the Thule communities broke apart, and the people became known as the Eskimo, and later, Inuit and Yupik.
History
The Thule Tradition lasted from about 200 BC to 1600 AD around the Bering Strait, the Thule people being the prehistoric ancestors of Inuit and Yupik. The Thule culture was mapped out by Therkel Mathiassen, following his participation as an archaeologist and cartographer of the Fifth Danish Thule Expedition, led by Knud Rasmussen, to Arctic America in 1921–1924. He excavated sites on Baffin Island and the northwestern Hudson Bay region, which he considered to be the remains of a highly developed Eskimo whaling culture that had originated in Alaska and moved to Arctic Canada approximately 1000 years ago.There are three stages of development leading up to Thule culture: the Okvik / Old Bering Sea stage, the Punuk stage, and the Birnirk stage. These stages represent variations of the Thule Tradition as it expanded over time. These groups of peoples have been referred to as "Neo-Eskimo" cultures, which are differentiated from the earlier Norton tradition. The Thule Tradition replaced the Dorset culture in the North American Eastern Arctic and introduced both kayaks and umiaks, or skin covered boats, into the archaeological record. They also developed new uses for iron and copper and demonstrated advanced harpoon technology by hunting bowhead whales, the largest animal in the Arctic.
Old Bering Sea stage, 200 BC to 500 AD
The Old Bering Sea stage was first characterized by Diamond Jenness, on the basis of a collection of deeply patinated decorated ivory harpoon heads and other objects dug up by natives on the St. Lawrence and Diomede Islands. Jenness identified the Bering Sea culture as a highly developed Inuit culture of northeastern Asiatic origin and pre-Thule in age.A strong maritime adaptation is characteristic of the Thule, and the OBS stage, and then can be seen in the archaeological evidence. Both kayaks and umiaks appear in the archaeological record for the first time. The tool kits of the people of the time are dominated by polished-slate rather than flaked-stone artifacts, including lanceolate knives, projectile heads, and the ulu transverse-bladed knife. The people also made a crude form of pottery and there was much use of bone and antlers for heads on harpoons, as well as to make darts, spears, snow goggles, blubber scrapers, needles, awls and mattocks, also walrus shoulder-blade snow shovels.
There are many important innovations that emerged that allowed hunting to be more efficient. Harpoon mounted ice picks were used for seal hunting, as well as ivory plugs and mouthpieces for inflating harpoon line floats, which enabled them to recover larger sea mammals when dispatched. These people relied heavily on seal and walrus for subsistence. It is easy to pick out OBS technology because of the artistic curvilinear dots, circles, and shorter lines that were used to decorate their tools.
The chronological relationship between the Okvik and Old Bering Seas cultures has been the subject of debate and remains largely undecided, based mainly on art styles. Some consider it to be a distinct culture pre-dating Old Bering Sea, but the close similarity and overlapping radiocarbon dates suggest Okvik and Old Bering Sea are best considered as roughly contemporaneous, with regional variants.
A 2019 genetic analysis concluded that between 2,700 and 4,900 years ago, the ancestors of the Thule emerged in Alaska through admixture between the Paleo-Eskimo and the Ocean Bay Tradition and that these ancestors subsequently migrated back to Siberia where they became the Old Bering Sea, only to eventually return to Alaska.
Punuk and Birnirk stages, c. 800 to 1400
The Punuk stage is a development of Old Bering Sea stage, with distribution along the major Bering Strait islands and along to shores of the Chukchi Peninsula. The Punuk culture was initially defined by Henry Collins in 1928 from a deep midden on one of the Punuk Islands. Later excavation on St. Lawrence Island confirmed Jenness's ideas on the Bering Sea culture, and demonstrated a continual cultural sequence on the island from Old Bering Sea, to Punuk, to modern Eskimo culture.Punuk is differentiated with Old Bering Sea through its artifact styles and house forms, as well as harpoon styles and whale hunting. Punuk settlements were larger and more common than earlier villages. They were subterranean, square or rectangular dwellings with wooden floors. The house was held up by whale jaw-bones, and covered in skins, sod and then snow. These houses were nicely insulated, and would have been only visible to the occupants.
Whaling has a greater emphasis in the Punuk stage. Hunters would use umiaks and kill whales in narrow ice leads as well as in the open sea in the fall. Open sea whaling required skilled leadership, teams of expert boatmen and hunters, and the cooperation of several boats. The whaleboat captain, the umialik, is still a prominent position in Alaskan Arctic communities today. Chipped stone tools were replaced by ground slate, ivory winged trident were in uses, and iron-tipped tools were used for engraving. Harpoon styles became simpler and more standardized, as did Punuk art. The Punuk developed their methods of hunting that led to the creation of armour made from bone as well as the technology of the bow and arrow. As well, bone plated wrist guards, the reinforced bow, bird bolas, heavy ivory net sinkers, and blunt tipped bird arrows appeared in the Punuk stage.
Birnirk culture is best known along coastal northern and western Alaska. There are three phases of Birnirk culture: Early Birnirk, Middle Birnirk, and Late Birnirk. These phases were primarily distinguishable by gradual changes in harpoon head and arrow styles. Harpoon heads were more often made of antler, rather than ivory, and were characterized by medially-placed, trifurcated spurs during Early Birnirk, bifurcated in Middle Birnirk, and single-laterally-placed spurs in Late Birnirk.
The Birnirk people used many of the same hunting methods and technology as Punuk and Old Bering Sea, 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 spiral and concentric motifs on clay pots with bone paddles. They did use sledges, of the same basic design as the dog sleds that were later used with dog teams. Birnirk people were sea-mammal hunters who engaged in fishing and whaling. Birnirk houses were square shaped, with walls constructed of horizontal logs and single or double posts in each corner. Sleeping areas were at the back of the dwelling and were either built up or at floor level. No interior hearths were found in the house ruins, although heavily encrusted and fire-blackened pottery vessel fragments suggest extensive use of open fires.
Classic stage, 1100 to 1400
During this time, eastern Thule spread out throughout the High Arctic and into the south. Thule people were living along the Hudson Strait coasts, in the Hudson Bay region, on the shores of the Foxe Basin, and along the present-day Canadian mainland from the Mackenzie Delta to the Melville Peninsula. The archaeologist Alan McCartney originally coined the term "Classic Thule" with reference to the population that existed between 1100 and 1400 AD.The Thule people still lived in semi-subterranean winter houses, but in the summer moved into skin tents, the edges held down by circles of stone. The Thule were using iron long before European contact. In the west it was used in small quantities for carving knives and for engraving other tools. The iron came both from meteoric resources and from trade from the Norse expansion; the Thule worked raw iron into tools for their own use. Iron 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. The Thule were clever with technology. Reports on classic Thule sites lists myriad artifacts used for hunting. Classic Thule did not place much emphasis on art. There were slight artistic details on household things such as combs but it involved very simple, linear designs featuring people without appendages, animals, or symbols that represented the human ties with the supernatural world.