Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:23:31.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contact between the Norse Vikings and the Dorset culture in Arctic Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Robert W. Park
Robert W. Park*
Affiliation:
*Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Instances of cultural interaction between Norse and native American have long been accepted. But current archaeological research recognises that the indigenous peoples of the north were themselves diverse and had diverse histories. Here the author shows that the culture of one of them, the Dorset people, owed nothing to the Norse and probably had no contact with them.

Keywords

VikingNorseDorset cultureThuleInuittextilesfigurative artacculturation
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 315 , March 2008 , pp. 189 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alt, S. 1998. Spindle Whorls and Fibre Production at Early Cahokian Settlement. Southeastern Archaeology 18: 124–8.Google Scholar
Anon. 2000. A Norse Yarn. Canadian Geographic 120: 18.Google Scholar
Appelt, M. & Gulløv, H.C.. 1999. Summary of Results, Discussion and Conclusion, in Appelt, M. & Gulløv, H.C. (ed.) Late Dorset in High Arctic Greenland: Final Report on the Gateway to Greenland Project. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center.Google Scholar
Bourque, B.J. & Cox, S.L.. 1981. Maine State Museum Investigation of the Goddard Site, 1979. Man in the Northeast 22: 3–27.Google Scholar
Drooker, P.B. 2004. Introduction: Perishable Evidence in the Northeast, in Drooker, P.B. (ed.) Perishable Material Culture in the Northeast. Albany: New York State Education Department.Google Scholar
Fagan, B.M. 2005. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Fitzhugh, W.W. 1994. Staffe Island 1 and the Northern Labrador Dorset-Thule Succession, in Morrison, D.A. & Pilon, J.-L. (ed.) Threads of Arctic Prehistory: Papers in Honour of William E. Taylor, Jr. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization, Archaeological Survey of Canada.Google Scholar
Fitzhugh, W.W. 2000. Puffins, Ringed Pins, and Runestones: The Viking Passage to America, in Fitzhugh, W.W. & Ward, E.I. (ed.) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Fitzhugh, W.W., Jordan, R.H., Adovasio, J. & Laeyendecker, D.. 2006. Cordage andWood from the Avayalik Dorset Site in Northern Labrador, in Arneborg, J. & Grønnow, B. (ed.) Dynamics of Northern Societies: Proceedings of the SILA/NABO Conference on Arctic and North Atlantic Archaeology, Copenhagen, May 10th–14th, 2004. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark.Google Scholar
Friesen, T.M. 2004. Contemporaneity of Dorset and Thule Cultures in the North American Arctic: New Radiocarbon Dates from Victoria Island, Nunavut. Current Anthropology 45: 685–91.Google Scholar
Gulløv, H.C. 2000. Natives and Norse in Greenland, in Fitzhugh, W.W. & Ward, E.I. (ed.) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Gustafson, P. 1980. Salish Weaving. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.Google Scholar
Harp, E.J. 1974–1975. A Late Dorset Copper Amulet from Southeastern Hudson Bay. Folk 16-7: 33–44.Google Scholar
Heckenberger, M.J., Petersen, J.B., King, F.B. & Basa, L.A.. 1996. Fiber Industries from the Boucher Site: an EarlyWoodland Cemetery in Northwestern Vermont, in Petersen, J.B. (ed.) A Most Indispensable Art: Native Fiber Industries from Eastern North America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Mary-Rousselière, G. 2002. Nunguvik et Saatut: sites paléoeskimaux de Navy Board Inlet, île de Baffin. Hull: Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization.Google Scholar
Maxwell, M.S. 1985. Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic. Orlando: Academic Press.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 1984. Contact between Native North Americans and the Medieval Norse: a Review of the Evidence. American Antiquity 49: 4–26.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 1991. Canada Rediscovered. Hull: Canadian Museum of Civilization.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 1996. Ancient People of the Arctic. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 2000a. A New View of the Norse in the New World: Viking Traders may have worked the Canadian Arctic for generations. Scientific American Discovering Archaeology 2: 54–61.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 2000b. Radiocarbon Dating and the Time of the Thule Migration, in Appelt, M., Berglund, J. & Gulløv, H.C. (ed.) Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 2004. The Last Imaginary Place: a Human History of the Arctic World. Toronto: Key Porter.Google Scholar
Odess, D., Loring, S. & Fitzhugh, W.W.. 2000. Skraeling: First Peoples of Helluland, Markland, and Vinland, in Fitzhugh, W.W. & Ward, E.I. (ed.) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Østergaard, E. 2004. Woven Into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.Google Scholar
Park, R.W. 1993. The Dorset-Thule Succession in Arctic North America: Assessing Claims for Culture Contact. American Antiquity 58: 203–34.Google Scholar
Park, R.W. 2000. The Dorset-Thule Succession Revisited, in Appelt, M., Berglund, J. & Gulløv, H.C. (ed.) Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center.Google Scholar
Plumet, P. 1985. Archéologie de l'Ungava: le site de la Pointe aux Bélougas (Qilalugarsiuvik) et les maisons longues Dorsétiennes. Montréal: Laboratoire d'archéologie de l'Université du Québec à Montréal.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. & Gestsdóttir, H.. 2006. The first settlers of Iceland: an isotopic approach to colonisation. Antiquity 80: 130–44.Google Scholar
Pringle, H. 2000. Hints of Frequent Pre-Columbian Contacts. Science 288: 783–5.Google Scholar
Sutherland, P.D. 2000a. Strands of Culture Contact: Dorset-Norse Interactions in the Canadian Eastern Arctic, in Appelt, M., Berglund, J. & Gull, H.C.øv (ed.) Identities and Cultural Contacts in the Arctic. Copenhagen: Danish National Museum & Danish Polar Center.Google Scholar
Sutherland, P.D. 2000b. The Norse and Native North Americans, in Fitzhugh, W.W. & Ward, E.I. (ed.) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Sutherland, P.D. 2002. Nunguvik and Saatut Revisited, in Mary-Rousselière, G.Nunguvik et Saatut: sites paléoeskimaux de Navy Board Inlet, île de Baffin,. Hull: Archaeological Survey of Canada, Canadian Museum of Civilization.Google Scholar
Turnbull, C.J. 1976. The Augustine Site: a Mound from the Maritimes. Archaeology of Eastern North America 4: 50–62.Google Scholar
Vésteinsson, O. 2000. The Archaeology of Landnám, in Fitzhugh, W.W. & Ward, E.I. (ed.) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Webster, L.D. & Drooker, P.B.. 2000. Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, in Drooker, P.B. & Webster, L.D. (ed.) Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Wymer, D. 2004. Organic Preservation on Prehistoric Copper Artifacts of the Ohio Hopewell, in Drooker, P.B. (ed.) Perishable Material Culture in the Northeast. Albany: New York State Education Department.Google Scholar