Test 3 Lecture 28

• harshest living conditions on earth
• survival requires knowledge, specialized skill, versatility and seasonality know how

• area north of 66⁰ 33’N (the Arctic Circle). 
• Includes Canada, Alaska, Russia, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland
• Most of the area is located above the tree line, which follows the isotherm (latitude that has the same temperature) along the Arctic Circle.
• Extremely fluctuating temperatures
• Temperatures average -40⁰ C (-40⁰ F) in winter and about 10⁰ C (50⁰ F) in the summer.
• Precipitation is low, average less than 20 inches a year, primarily as snow

• Vegetation consists of small shrubs, lichens, mosses, and herbs, and is representative of tundra environments further south. 
• Plant life becomes increasingly sparse further north and eventually dissipates altogether.
• low arctic has much more vegetation
• low arctic is in the south
• further north the more scare vegetation is

• variable seasonality
• Terrestrial species include fox, caribou, muskox, arctic squirrel, wolf, hare, lemming small members of the rodentia andermine families
• Marine species include seal, walrus, beluga, narwhal, baleen whale, Greenland shark,and killer whale.
• Avian species include auk, puffin, snow owl, and about 54 other species

• Arctic populated because of harsh environment.
• unclear if migration into North America occurred from the south or if people came across the ice and waters of Siberia.
• After initial migration into North America  archaeologists identified three separate northerly migrations.
• (1)- 11,000 years ago into Yukon and Alaska
• (2)- 8000 years ago into the Barren Grounds west of Hudson Bay
• (3)- 9000 years ago along the Atlantic coast.

• distinctive micro-lithic industry penetrates the Arctic Circle.
• Characterized by micro-blades, scrapers, and burins as small as 2 centimeters
• Origins are unclear. 
• Two major traditions:
• Independence I Culture of the High Arctic, and Pre-Dorset of the Low Arctic.

• defined by Eigil Knuth (1903-1996) discovered evidence of early occupation along the beaches.
• apart of Danish Pearyland Expedition to Independence Fjord in 1948
• 1st evidence of human occupation in the arctic
• Evidence included microliths, bone needles, and hearths.
• Independence I camps identified on Ellesmere, Devon, and Cornwallis islands in the Canadian High Arctic.
• small camps consisting of small box-shaped hearth made from stone slabs set upright on a gravel beach.
• In a few cases a second row of slabs have been erected and the gravel between them
• and the hearth smoothed over to make sleeping areas, with a narrow rim of gravel forming a perimeter to hold down a tent or skin shelter.
• Dispersed distribution of short-term campsites.
• Port Refuge, Devon Island, has over 100 camps along 20 kilometers.

identifiable in the high arctic because of lack of vegetation and biomass to push the materials underground

• Centered in the region of northern Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, and Foxe Basin, which is a much richer biosphere.
• Considered ancestral to the later Dorset cultures of the eastern Arctic.
• In comparison to Independence I, Pre-Dorset microblades and burins are smaller, occasionally ground or polished on one surface.
• harpoon tools change - more rigorous
• In this they resemble materials from western Alaska, suggesting an early migration eastwards around 2000 BC.
• Camp sites change to more clustered and more circular features, often with boulders to hold down the tent structure
• Soap-stone lamps used to burn blubber.