| Summary: | Undisturbed oriented archaeological sediment samples were retrieved from the interior of three communal semisubterranean sod houses using steel Kubiëna boxes (10 cm3). The sampling strategy was aimed at obtaining a micromorphological portrait of each activity carried out within the communal house. The primary areas of interest were the following: sleeping platform, floor, lampstand, and entrance tunnel. We sought to determine if we could demarcate activity areas based on soil microstructure and pedofeatures. At House 1 (in Oakes Bay 1), two samples were taken using Kubiëna boxes: one from the floor (F) and one from the tunnel (T). At House 2 (in Oakes Bay 1), two Kubiëna boxes were extracted from the sleeping platform (PF) and a third one from the area between the sleeping platform and the floor (PF/F). We also removed two boxes from the floor (F), one from the lampstand (L) (which lay above the stone floor) and one from the entrance tunnel (T). At House 7 (in Uivak Point), two boxes were extracted from the sleeping platform, two at the edge of the sleeping platform, and one from the entrance tunnel (Figure 5). All of these sections were selected for sampling based on the evidence provided by archaeological interpretations (e.g. Woollett, 2003, 2010). Fourteen thin sections (5 cm × 7.5 cm) were prepared at Brock University (Ontario, Canada) using conventional methods (Guillore, 1985). The samples were oven-dried, impregnated with polyester resin, and then sliced into 30-um-thick sections. The thin sections were analyzed using a Leica DM-4500 polarized microscope in planepolarized light (PPL), crossed-polarized light (XPL), and oblique-incident light (OIL) at the microscopy laboratory of the Centre d'études nordiques (Québec, Laval University). The thin sections were described following Bullock et al. (1985), Fitzpatrick (1993), Vliet-Lanoë (1985), and Courty , Goldberg, and Macphail (1989). Micromorphological analysis focused primarily on anthropogenic features, but mineral and organic components associated with biopedological features and cryopedological processes were also documented.
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