| Summary: | The goal of this thesis is to re-evaluate the origins of the Caribou Inuit. The thesis presents theories that have been proposed by Birket-Smith (1929), Burch (1978), and Clark (1978). Each theory represents a diverse perspective regarding Caribou Inuit origins that include, respectively, a proto-Eskimo origin, an immigration origin, and cultural change resulting from European contact. The alternative theory being proposed in this thesis is that change in environmental conditions that resulted from the Little Ice Age caused the most favoured food resource, the ringed seal, to decline significantly in abundance because the necessary ice conditions that are required for these seals to inhabit a particular area no longer existed. The implications that are discussed and tested as a result of a decline in marine resources are there would have been a shift in focal resources, a corresponding change in regional territories, and a change in subsistence-settlement systems.
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