Asta Mønsted, Martin Appelt, Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, Claire Houmard, Antoine Zazzo, Sophie Cersoy, Olivier Tombret, Bjarne Grønnow
{"title":"An Early Inuit Workshop at a<i>Qassi</i>, a Men’s House, Nuulliit, Northwest Greenland","authors":"Asta Mønsted, Martin Appelt, Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, Claire Houmard, Antoine Zazzo, Sophie Cersoy, Olivier Tombret, Bjarne Grønnow","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent excavations in northern Greenland at the early Inuit site, Nuulliit, belonging to the Ruin Island Phase of the Thule culture, included a settlement area in front of House 30, a turf house ruin originally investigated by Holtved in 1947. A discussion of the interpretation of the feature as a qassi (a men’s house) is presented, and analyses of the spatial distributions of waste, tools, and preforms show that the area in front of the qassi served mainly as a workshop, where repair, recycling, and discard of hunting gear and tools took place. Walrus ivory tools, soapstone vessels, and blades of meteoric iron were produced. Training apprentices was an integral part of the activities, and small seals and birds were consumed in the workshop area. The workshop mainly dates to the 14th century AD. Norse iron was found, and a reevaluation of radiocarbon dates leads to a discussion of the early Inuit expansion into Greenland.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Arctic Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.3","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Recent excavations in northern Greenland at the early Inuit site, Nuulliit, belonging to the Ruin Island Phase of the Thule culture, included a settlement area in front of House 30, a turf house ruin originally investigated by Holtved in 1947. A discussion of the interpretation of the feature as a qassi (a men’s house) is presented, and analyses of the spatial distributions of waste, tools, and preforms show that the area in front of the qassi served mainly as a workshop, where repair, recycling, and discard of hunting gear and tools took place. Walrus ivory tools, soapstone vessels, and blades of meteoric iron were produced. Training apprentices was an integral part of the activities, and small seals and birds were consumed in the workshop area. The workshop mainly dates to the 14th century AD. Norse iron was found, and a reevaluation of radiocarbon dates leads to a discussion of the early Inuit expansion into Greenland.
期刊介绍:
Arctic Anthropology, founded in 1962 by Chester S. Chard, is an international journal devoted to the study of Old and New World northern cultures and peoples. Archaeology, ethnology, physical anthropology, and related disciplines are represented, with emphasis on: studies of specific cultures of the arctic, subarctic and contiguous regions of the world; the peopling of the New World; relationships between New World and Eurasian cultures of the circumpolar zone; contemporary problems and culture change among northern peoples; and new directions in interdisciplinary northern research.