Pre-Dorset Culture

• Main Authors: Park, Robert, Milne, S. Brooke
• Other Authors: Friesen, Max, Mason, Owen
• Format: Book
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University Press 2016
• Subjects: Arctic; Dorset culture; Pre-Dorset culture
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199766956.013.39

This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the widespread and diverse Pre-Dorset culture, known from the central and eastern parts of the Canadian Arctic between 4500 and 2700 B.P. The Pre-Dorset were mobile foragers, moving across the landscape to exploit seasonally available land and sea mammals in different locales, although the extent of their movements varied considerably. The lithic component of their technology has been more intensively studied than the organic component due to differential preservation; it too is characterized by considerable variability. The chapter summarizes the finds from several sites and explores the difficulty in defining Pre-Dorset as a single cohesive entity due both to its history of research and its enormous geographic extent.