Taltheilei houses, lithics, and mobility

• Main Author: Pickering, Sean Joseph
• Other Authors: Dawson, Peter C.
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Graduate Studies 2012
• Subjects: Archaeology; Arctic; subarctic; lithic; Mobility; hunter-gatherer; taltheilei; household; debitage; barrenlands; semi-subterranean; Nunavut; Kivalliq; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11023/177; https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27975

The precontact subsistence-settlement strategy of Taltheilei tradition groups has been interpreted by past researchers as representing a high residential mobility forager system characterized by ephemeral warm season use of the Barrenlands environment, while hunting barrenground caribou. However, the excavation of four semi-subterranean house pits at the Ikirahak site (JjKs-7), in the Southern Kivalliq District of Nunavut, has challenged these assumptions. An analysis of the domestic architecture, as well as the morphological and spatial attributes of the excavated lithic artifacts, has shown that some Taltheilei groups inhabited the Barrenlands environment during the cold season for extended periods of time likely subsisting on stored resources.