Ancient people had nautical skills, knowing how to cross the dangerous Arctic channel

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of an ancient camp on a remote High Arctic island that was built more than 4,000 years ago.

They provide a surprising new insight into the first people who lived near what is now the Canada-Greenland border and set out to take advantage of the rich new ecosystem that was created during that time.

A Paleo-Inuit archaeological site was discovered at Kitsissut, a rocky cluster of islands that straddles the cliffs between Greenland and Ellesmere Island.

As it happened thousands of years ago, getting there today by boat is a journey of at at least 53 kilometers from the nearest coast in the harsh, high Arctic sea conditions.

“It would have been an unusual journey for them to have reached this area by watercraft,” said Matthew Walls, lead author of the new study describing their findings. published Monday in Antiquity magazine.

Walls estimated that by boat or kayak, reaching Kitsissut would take 12 to 15 hours of hard paddling — so long that the weather could easily turn from calm to stormy along the way.

The archaeological site contains evidence that many people visited and lived there repeatedly.

“It’s obviously a place where people come back for a long time,” Walls said.

Max Friesen, a University of Toronto Arctic archaeologist who co-authored the paper but was not involved in the study, said the findings suggest the Paleo-Inuit people had more sophisticated sea fishing technology than previously thought.

He said that small fragments of their boats were found, suggesting that they had vessels like a boat or kayak made of animal skins stretched over a bone or wooden frame. But not much was known.

Friesen, former PhD supervisor Walls, he said the Paleo-Inuit were found across the High Arctic. If they had the skills and technology to travel back and forth to Kitsissut, they may have also done things like hunting seals or even whales far out at sea.

That means they may have had wider choices about what resources to use and how they might have affected ecosystems over thousands of years.

“There are big implications for the entire Arctic, aren’t they?” Friesen said. “So that’s really exciting, really adding to what we know about transportation technology.”

What an ancient camp looks like

Walls worked with University of Greenland researchers Mari Kleist and Pauline Knudson, and a team of local Inuit to map the archaeological site and reveal the artifacts between 2017 and 2019.

The mountain range has been rising out of the ocean over time, receding from the weight of the now-melting glaciers. On the oldest, highest hills, farthest inland from today’s coast, there are 18 tent rings – circular areas cleared of rocks, with a ring of stones around them.

Those stones may have held the edges of the tents, probably sealskins spread over the wooden frames.

There was usually a central hearth with burnt wood scraps in the middle, and a row of stones dividing the tent into two “rooms” that could be used for different activities, such as working with animal skins or making stone tools.

A seabird bone found inside one of the tent rings was sent for radiocarbon dating. From that analysis, the researchers estimate the age of the site to be between 4,000 and 4,400 years old, the time when the first archaeological evidence of people, known as Paleo-Inuit, was found across the High Arctic.

Polynya pioneers of many species

It was also at that time that a rich ecosystem developed in Kitsissut, due to the creation of a rare channel of open water in the sea ice called Pikialosorsuaq or the North Water polynya. Walls said it was due to the different wind, current conditions and terrain in the area.

“It’s a very important ecological site,” Walls said. Open water allows for phytoplankton blooms that support the entire food chain.

The Kitsissut cliffs are home to nesting seabirds and marine mammals such as seals that hunt in the surrounding waters, many of which would begin migrating there when the polynya opened.

Walls said that’s important to how people think about these Arctic ecosystems and their conservation.

“Indigenous communities are part of their development in the long term, from their early formation,” he said, supporting the argument for indigenous leadership today.

Lesley Howse is the director of archeology at the Inuit Heritage Trust, an Inuit organization that manages cultural heritage in partnership with the government of Nunavut, including archaeological collections and education, enabling archaeological projects and applications for work and Inuit goods.

Howse, who previously worked with Walls, Kleist and Knudsen but was not involved in the study, said archaeologists used to think that Paleo-Inuit relied heavily on land hunting.

He is not surprised by the evidence that they were so skilled at sea, as it is necessary to use all the resources available to survive in such a harsh environment.

“Water is important for us to live in the north,” he said. “You have to trust and rely on all the animals that are there and adapt to the technology that you have. I think this [research] in a way that makes this shine.”