Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:02:04.327Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Radiocarbon dating of musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) bones from the Thule region, northwest Greenland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2013

Ole Bennike
Ole Bennike*
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Thule region in north Greenland formerly supported a population of musk-oxen (Ovibos moschatus). Radiocarbon dating of bones of this mammal collected on the terrain surface and from archaeological sites has yielded late Holocene ages, indicating that the species was a late immigrant to this part of Greenland. The species may have arrived at a time when the area was uninhabited, and it had at least a thousand years to spread south, before the Late Dorset people arrived. The heavy glaciation of Melville Bugt in the late Holocene was probably the main reason that the musk-ox did not disperse south to west Greenland. The population of musk-ox in the region may have peaked during the Medieval Warm Period, and the species survived during the occupation of the region by the Late Dorset people. The size of the population may have declined during the beginning of the Little Ice Age, and musk-ox was probably exterminated from the region shortly after the arrival of the mobile Thule people.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 113 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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

Appelt, M. and Gulløv, H.C. (editors). 1999. Late Dorset in high Arctic Greenland. Copenhagen: Danish Polar Center (Publication 7).Google Scholar
Bennike, O. 1997. Quaternary vertebrates from Greenland: a review. Quaternary Science Reviews 16: 899–909.Google Scholar
Bennike, O. 2002. Late Quaternary history of Washington Land, north Greenland. Boreas 31: 260–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennike, O. and Andreasen, C.. 2005. New dates of musk-ox (Ovibos moschatus) remains from northwest Greenland. Polar Record 41: 125–129.Google Scholar
Bennike, O. 2008. An early Holocene Greenland whale from Melville Bugt, Greenland. Quaternary Research 69: 72–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennike, O., Higgins, A.K. and Kelly, M.. 1989. Mammals of central north Greenland. Polar Record 25: 43–49.Google Scholar
Bessels, E. 1879. Die amerikanische Nordpol-Expedition. Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann.Google Scholar
Bradley, R.S., Hughes, M.K. and Diaz, H.F. 2003. Climate change: Climate in Medieval Time. Science 302: 404–405.Google Scholar
Briner, J.P., Håkansson, L. and Bennike, O.. in press. The deglaciation and neoglaciation of Upernavik Isstrøm, Greenland. Quaternary Research.Google Scholar
Campos, P.F., Willerslev, E., Sher, A., Orlando, L., Axelsson, E., Tikhonov, A., Aaris-Sørensen, K., Greenwood, A.D., Kahlke, R-D., Kosintsev, P., Krakhmalnaya, T., Kuznetsova, T., Lemey, P., MacPhee, R., Norris, C.A., Shepherd, K., Suchard, M.A., Zazula, G.D., Shapiro, B. and Gilbert, M.T.P.. 2010. Ancient DNA analyses exclude humans as the driving force behind late Pleistocene musk ox (Ovibos) population dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107: 5675–5680.Google Scholar
Crégut-Bonnoure, E. 1984. The Pleistocene Ovibovinae of western Europe: temporo-spatial expansion and paleoecological implications. Fairbanks: University of Alaska (Biological papers, University of Alaska special report 4): 136–144.Google Scholar
Dahl-Jensen, D., Mosegaard, K., Gundestrup, N., Clow, G.D., Johnsen, S.J., Hansen, A.W. and Balling, N.. 1998. Past temperatures directly from the Greenland ice sheet. Science 282: 268–271.Google Scholar
Dansgaard, W. 2004. Frozen annals. Greenland ice sheet research. Odder: Narayana Press.Google Scholar
Darwent, C.M. and Darwent, J.. 2004. Where the muskox roamed: biogeography of tundra muskox (Ovibos moschatus) in the eastern Arctic. In: Lyman, R.L. and Cannon, K.P. (editors). Zooarchaeology and conservation biology. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press: 61–87.Google Scholar
Darwent, J., Darwent, C.M., LeMoine, G. and Lange, H.. 2007. Archaeological survey of eastern Inglefield Land, northwest Greenland. Arctic Anthropology 44: 51–86.Google Scholar
Feilden, H.W. 1877. On the mammalia of north Greenland and Grinnell Land. Zoologist Series 3,1: 313–321, 353–361.Google Scholar
Freuchen, P., 1911. Om Rener og Moskusokser i Kap York Distriktet. Geografisk Tidsskrift 21: 144–146.Google Scholar
Gulløv, H.C. (editor). 2004. Grønlands forhistorie. Copenhagen: Gyldendal.Google Scholar
Gulløv, H.C. 2008. The nature of contact between native Greenlanders and Norse. Journal of the North Atlantic 1: 16–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, I.I. 1867. The open polar sea. A narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole in the schooner ‘United States’. New York: Hurd and Houghton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtved, E. 1944. Archaeological investigations in the Thule District I. Descriptive part. Mededelelser om Grønland 141 (1): 1–308.Google Scholar
Jensen, A.S., 1930. Moskusoksen paa Grønland og dens fremtid. Dansk Jagttidende 46: 274–278.Google Scholar
Kane, E.K., 1856. Arctic explorations: the Second Grinnell Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, 1853, ‘54, ‘55. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Childs and Peterson.Google Scholar
Kelly, M., 1980. The status of the Neoglacial in western Greenland. Rapport Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse 96.Google Scholar
LeMoine, G.M., and Darwent, C.M.. 2010. The Inglefield Land archaeology project: introduction and overview. Journal of Danish Geography 110: 279–296.Google Scholar
Lent, P.C. 1999. Muskoxen and their hunters, a history. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Ohlin, A. 1895. Zoological observations during Peary Auxiliary Expedition 1894. Biologisches Centralblatt 15: 161–174.Google Scholar
Olesen, C.R., Thing, H. and Aastrup, P.. 1994. Growth of wild muskoxen under two nutritional regimes in Greenland. Rangifer 14: 3–10.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, K. 1921. Beskrivelse af Thule Distrikt. Meddelelser om Grønland 60 (1): 518–567.Google Scholar
Sand, R. 1935. Knud Rasmussens virke i og for Thule-Distriktet. In: Freuchen, P., Mathiassen, T. and Birket-Smith, K. (editors). Knud Rasmussen, mindeudgave vol. 3: 381–392.Google Scholar
Steensby, H.P. 1910. Contributions to the ethnology and anthropology of the polar eskimos. Meddelelser om Grønland 34: 253–405.Google Scholar
Stuart, A.J. and Lister, A.M.. 2012. Extinction chronology of the woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis in the context of late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions in northern Eurasia. Quaternary Science Reviews 51: 1–17.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. and Reimer, P.J.. 1993. Extended 14C database and revised CALIB 3.0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35: 215–230.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Beck, J.W., Burr, G.S., Hughen, K.A., Kromer, B., McCormac, F.G., Plicht, J. v. d., Spurk, M.. 1998. INTCAL radiocarbon age calibration, 24,000–0 cal BP. Radiocarbon 40, 1041–1083.Google Scholar
Vartanyan, S.L., Arslanov, K.A., Tertychnaya, T.V. and Chernov, S.B.. 1995. Radiocarbon dating evidence for mammoths on Wrangel Island, Arctic Ocean, until 2000 BC. Radiocarbon 3:1–6.Google Scholar
Vibe, C. 1967. Arctic animals in relation to climatic fluctuations. Meddelelser om Grønland 170 (5): 1–227.Google Scholar
Weidick, A. 1984. Studies of glacier behaviour and glacier mass balance in Greenland – a review. Geografiska Annaler 66A: 183–195.Google Scholar
Weidick, A. 1996. Late Holocene and historical changes of glacier cover and related relative sea level in Greenland. Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde und Glaziologie 32: 217–224.Google Scholar
Winge, H. 1902. Grønlands pattedyr. Meddelelser om Grønland 21: 319–521.Google Scholar