Summary: | Ethnoarchaeology in Arctic Canada: Exploring how climate change and colonialism impacted traditional Inuit life, ca. AD 1300 to present. Over the past several hundred years, traditional practices of indigenous peoples across the circumpolar Arctic have been heavily impacted by ecological and social stresses, including episodes of dramatic climate change, as well as colonialist policies that restricted residential mobility and eventually encouraged year-roundsedentism and cultural assimilation. Given its abundance of archaeological sites and the presence of a resilient, active subsistence hunting economy, the Foxe Basin region of arctic Canada is an ideal place in which to explore these issues. In this paper, I describe recent archaeological work I have carried out in the region, and outline my plans for ethnoarchaeological investigations there in the coming years.
|