Canadian Arctic prehistory

Summary: Book for the general reader on archaeology in the arctic. Legends and myths of the ancestors of the Inuit people told over the generations, through stories and through things left behind. The pre-historian approaches the past on a different level than the storyteller, however, in that he asks specific questions that are only vaguely dealt with in mythology. Where did the Inuit come from, and how are they related to other races? When did they arrive in Arctic North America, and what brought them to a land so cold and barren that no other people have found it habitable? How, with such a tiny population, did they establish and maintain mastery over approximately one-fiftieth of the land area of earth? To answer, we must turn to archaeology, to the study of the remains of villages and camps occupied by these ancestors of the Inuit. Through excavating and studying these remains, we obtain an idea of the way of life led by the people who lived in this distant past. Traces of houses, or tents tell us about the size of settlements. Bones of animals used for food are preserved on the Arctic soil, indicating what the people lived on. These same bones, and the charcoal from cooking fires, can be analyzed by radiocarbon dating methods to determine an approximate age of the site. Tools and weapons can be recovered, to discover how technology has changed over time.