Dynamic Inuit social strategies in changing environment: A long term perspective

Inuit have lived in the eastern Arctic for 800-1000 years, their culture having developed in the Bering Strait region during the preceding centuries. Although the Inuit past in the eastern Arctic is complex, to some degree it can be seen to revolve around two primary processes or sets of interconnected events. First, is the migration from Alaska to the east by the earliest Inuit, known as Thule, an apparently rapid event which replaced populations of the earlier, and culturally very different Dorset tradition. Second, is the transformation of Thule Inuit into their more diverse recent cultural forms, involving abandonment of some regions, combined with major changes in settlement patterns, artifact and architecture form, economy, and social organization. Explanations for these changes fall into two main categories: those relating to changing environments, and those relating to social and cultural factors. There is currently little agreement on the nature and relative importance of these various factors, either as they impact the Thule migration, or the Thule Recent Inuit Transition. Therefore, we are left with two primary challenges: 1) determining the relative importance of these various factors on the observed Inuit culture changes, including the relationships between factors; and 2) understanding the dynamic role of Inuit social structures and mechanisms in shaping, enabling, or in some cases constraining the Inuit perception of and responses to these various factors. The present project is addressing these questions through six programs of field research, the pooling of a variety of theoretical approaches, and the integration of traditional knowledge, paleoenvironmental data, and archaeological data. 1. Environment and Society during the Thule Migration 2.Timing and Causes of the Early Thule Migration 3.Paleoenvironments and Thule Social Change on Melville Peninsula, Nunavut 4.Thule Settlement Patterns and Seasonal Procurement Strategies in Coastal Nunavut 5.The Komaktorvik Archaeology Project: Inuit Household Economies from the Thule to Historic Periods in Northern Labrador 6.Resilience, Transformational Change, and the Origins of Caribou Inuit Culture