3 The Arnapik Site

• Published in: Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology
• Main Author: Taylor, William E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1968
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science; Arctic; Hudson Bay; Hudson; Mansel Island; Amulet Creek
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0081130000003245; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0081130000003245

The Arnapik site, JlGu-9, is located about two miles east (Fig. 1) of Amulet Creek (61°51′15″N., 79°27′40″W.) on the central east coast of Mansel Island in the northeastern extremity of Hudson Bay. Mansel Island, 36 miles west of the Ungava mainland at its closest point, is a low, generally barren island measuring roughly 60 by 34 miles. Despite its size its maximum elevation is under 500 feet. The island, formed of limestone and limestone gravels, geologically is a member of the Arctic lowlands. The vegetation, arctic grasses, sedges, mosses, lichens, willow and arctic flowers, is extremely sparse for this latitude, a marked contrast to the hardrock terrain of the nearby mainland, but much like such high Arctic locales as Bathurst and Comwallis Islands near 75° north latitude (Polunin 1948: 248).