Archaeological Investigations in the Arctic and Subarctic, 1957

• Published in: ARCTIC
• Main Author: MacNeish, R.S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Arctic Institute of North America 1957
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Ellesmere Island; Firth River; Flint; Greenland; Igloolik; Lake Hazen; Melville Peninsula; Payne; Ruggles River; Ungava Peninsula; Yukon; eskimo*; Sarqaq; Subarctic; Ungava peninsula; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.14430/arctic3764; http://arctic.journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/viewFile/3764/3739

... I shall attempt to summarize the various archaeological activities that occurred in the Arctic and subarctic during the last summer. ... Members of a party called Operation Hazen organized by the Defence Research Board as part of the Canadian program for the International Geophysical Year worked on archaeological remains on Ellesmere Island, discovering four sites of aboriginal structures. One, about twenty miles north of Lake Hazen; one on the shores of Lake Hazen; and two along the Ruggles River. Few artifacts were uncovered since they did no digging. These sites, however, are of considerable significance for not only are they the northernmost sites in the Canadian Arctic but they are situated along the hypothetical route of migration from the Canadian Arctic to Greenland. ... Dr. Jorgen Meldgaard of the National Museum of Denmark, returned to the Alarnerk Site in the Igloolik area on the Melville Peninsula after two season's absence. ... Most of these early pre-Dorset remains appear to belong to an early and late period having burins, micro-blades, side-blades, small end-blades, and other artifacts indicating a close relationship with both the Cape Denbigh Flint Complex of Alaska as well as with Sarqaq of Greenland. The sequential changes in his artifact types from these pre-Dorset remains closely parallel change of types from the four middle cultural phases from the Firth River in the Canadian Yukon. ... Mr. William E. Taylor of the National Museum of Canada undertook preliminary excavation and survey in the interior as well as the coast and adjacent islands of the northern part of the Ungava Peninsula. His activities in the interior were at Payne Lake where he found about forty house remains, of which he excavated four. All of these were Dorset with one having a slight overlay of Eskimo remains. On the coast at the estuary of the Payne River, he uncovered another Dorset site as well as one Dorset burial. ... At Sugluk, seven sites were investigated and five of these appear to be Dorset villages with ...