The influence of a lost society, the Sadlermiut, on the environment in the Canadian Arctic

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Viehberg, Finn A., Medeiros, Andrew S., Plessen, Birgit, Wang, Xiaowa, Muir, Derek, Pienitz, Reinhard
• Other Authors: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, North Program of Crown-Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Discovery grant, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Northern Supplement grant, Universität Greifswald
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2021
• Subjects: Multidisciplinary; Arctic; Nunavut; Canada; Southampton Island; Native Point
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97631-7; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97631-7.pdf; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97631-7

Abstract High latitude freshwater ecosystems are sentinels of human activity and environmental change. The lakes and ponds that characterize Arctic landscapes have a low resilience to buffer variability in climate, especially with increasing global anthropogenic stressors in recent decades. Here, we show that a small freshwater pond in proximity of the archaeological site “Native Point” on Southampton Island (Nunavut, Arctic Canada) is a highly sensitive environmental recorder. The sediment analyses allowed for pinpointing the first arrival of Sadlermiut culture at Native Point to ~ 1250 CE, followed by a dietary shift likely in response to the onset of cooling in the region ~ 1400 CE. The influence of the Sadlermiut on the environment persisted long after the last of their population perished in 1903. Presently, the pond remains a distorted ecosystem that has experienced fundamental shifts in the benthic invertebrate assemblages and accumulated anthropogenic metals in the sediment. Our multi-proxy paleolimnological investigation using geochemical and biological indicators emphasizes that direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts have long-term environmental implications on high latitude ecosystems.