Archaeological Investigations in the Arctic and Subarctic, 1957

• Published in: ARCTIC
• Main Author: MacNeish, R.S.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Arctic Institute of North America 1957
• Subjects: Artifacts; Dorset culture; Indian archaeology; Inuit archaeology; Hazen; Lake; region; Nunavut; Ruggles River region; Igloolik region; Payne; Lac; (59 25 N; 74 00 W) region; Québec; Bassin; Salluit region; Yukon; Alaska; Old Crow Flats; Arctic; Canada; Dawson City; Ellesmere Island; Firth River; Flint; Greenland; Igloolik; Indian; Johnsons; Johnsons Crossing; Kluane Lake; Lake Hazen; Melville Peninsula; Ruggles River; Salluit; Skarland; Ungava Peninsula; Dawson; eskimo*; inuit; Mayo; Old Crow; Sarqaq; Subarctic; Ungava peninsula
• Online Access: https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/view/66814

. I shall attempt to summarize the various archaeological activities that occurred in the Arctic and subarctic during the last summer. . Members of a party called Operation Hazen organized by the Defence Research Board as part of the Canadian program for the International Geophysical Year worked on archaeological remains on Ellesmere Island, discovering four sites of aboriginal structures. One, about twenty miles north of Lake Hazen; one on the shores of Lake Hazen; and two along the Ruggles River. Few artifacts were uncovered since they did no digging. These sites, however, are of considerable significance for not only are they the northernmost sites in the Canadian Arctic but they are situated along the hypothetical route of migration from the Canadian Arctic to Greenland. . Dr. Jorgen Meldgaard of the National Museum of Denmark, returned to the Alarnerk Site in the Igloolik area on the Melville Peninsula after two season's absence. . Most of these early pre-Dorset remains appear to belong to an early and late period having burins, micro-blades, side-blades, small end-blades, and other artifacts indicating a close relationship with both the Cape Denbigh Flint Complex of Alaska as well as with Sarqaq of Greenland. The sequential changes in his artifact types from these pre-Dorset remains closely parallel change of types from the four middle cultural phases from the Firth River in the Canadian Yukon. . Mr. William E. Taylor of the National Museum of Canada undertook preliminary excavation and survey in the interior as well as the coast and adjacent islands of the northern part of the Ungava Peninsula. His activities in the interior were at Payne Lake where he found about forty house remains, of which he excavated four. All of these were Dorset with one having a slight overlay of Eskimo remains. On the coast at the estuary of the Payne River, he uncovered another Dorset site as well as one Dorset burial. . At Sugluk, seven sites were investigated and five of these appear to be Dorset villages with semi-subterranean rectangular houses. My endeavours were in the southern part of the Yukon Territory between Johnsons Crossing, Kluane Lake, Dawson City, and Mayo. Ninety-seven sites were discovered as well as about 1,000 artifacts. The sites seem to belong to at least six different artifact complexes, four of which were below the volcanic ash layers dated about 300 A.D. Twenty-eight of the sites are micro-blade sites. In Alaska, Dr. Ivar Skarland of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Alaska, during the last part of the summer, investigated interior sites on which "Puma" projectile points have been found. Mr. Gordon Lowther, of the McCord Museum of McGill University of Montreal, undertook archaeological survey in the Old Crow Flats in the Yukon Territory. He was most successful in finding fourteen archaeological sites as well as places at which mammoth bones occurred. As yet, his materials have not been analysed .