Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T11:22:09.421Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - The Initial Peopling of the Circumpolar North

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2023

By
Bjarne Grønnow
Edited by
Adrian Howkins  and
Peder Roberts
Adrian Howkins
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Peder Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Stavanger
Get access

Summary

When and why did the originally tropical being, Homo sapiens, enter the circumpolar north? What attracted human societies to this part of the Earth characterized by extreme seasonal variability, long periods of darkness, rough and cold weather, barren tundra, high mountains, ice caps, and vast areas of sea ice? Through analyses of ancient material remains such as stone-built structures, artefacts and bones preserved in cultural layers on dwelling sites, Arctic archaeology provides some insights into these basic questions about the expansion of human societies into the circumpolar north and how they managed to thrive there for millennia.

Keywords

InuitArcticmigrationarchaeologySiberiaBeringiaGreenlandCanadaThuleDorset
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Polar Regions , pp. 79 - 105
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Patricia M., and Lozhkin, Anatoly V., “Eastern Beringia: Climates and Environments During the Initial Peopling”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A., and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 299–310.Google Scholar
Bang-Andersen, Sveinung, “The First One Thousand Years: Human Colonization and Differentiated Landscape Use in South-Western Norway, 10,000–9,000 bc”, in Blankholm, Hans Peter, ed., Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change (Bristol: Equinox, 2018), pp. 275–310.Google Scholar
Besprozvanny, Evgeniy M., Kosintsev, Pavel A., and Pogodin, Andrey A., “North of West Siberia”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 189–210.Google Scholar
Bjerck, Hein, “Colonizing Seascapes: Comparative Perspectives on the Development of Maritime Relations in Scandinavia and Patagonia”, Arctic Anthropology 46 (2009): 118–131.Google Scholar
Bjerck, Hein, “The North Sea Continent and the Pioneer Settlement of Norway”, in Fischer, Anders, ed., Man and Sea in the Mesolithic: Coastal Settlement Above and Below Present Sea Level, Oxbow Monograph 53 (Oxford: Oxbow, 1995), pp. 131–144.Google Scholar
Bjerck, Hein, ed., NTNU Vitenskapsmuseets arkeologiske undersøkelser, Ormen Lange Nyhamna (Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk, 2008).Google Scholar
Blankholm, Hans Peter, “Macro-level Predictive Modelling of Early Stone Age Pioneer Settlement Locations in Varanger, Northern Norway”, in Blankholm, Hans Peter, ed., Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change (Bristol: Equinox, 2018), pp. 77–101.Google Scholar
Bourgeon, Lauriane, Burke, Ariane, and Higham, Thomas, “Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada”, PLoS ONE 12 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breivik, Heidi Melva, and Bjerck, Hein, “Early Mesolithic in Central Norway: A Review of Research History, Settlements and Tool Tradition”, in Blankholm, Hans Peter, ed., Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change (Bristol: Equinox, 2018), pp. 169–206.Google Scholar
Cinq-Mars, Jacques, and Morlan, Richard E., “Bluefish Caves and Old Crow Basin: A New Rapport”, in Bonnichsen, Robson and Turnmire, Karen L., eds., Ice Age Peoples of North America: Environments, Origins, and Adaptations of the First Americans (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1999), pp. 200–212.Google Scholar
Davidson, Thomas A., Wetterrich, Sebastian, Johansen, Kasper L., et al., “The History of Seabird Colonies and the North Water Ecosystem: Contributions from Paleoecological and Archaeological Evidence”, Ambio 47 (Supplement 2): The North Water: Interdisciplinary Studies of a High Arctic Polynya under Transformation (2018): 175–192.Google Scholar
Derevyanko, Antoly P., “The Most Ancient Migrations of Humans into Eurasia and the Problem of the Upper Paleolithic Formation”, Archaeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 2 (2005): 22–36.Google Scholar
Derevyanko, Anatoly P., “Transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic on the Altai”, Archaeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia 3 (2001): 70–103.Google Scholar
Dixon, James E., Arrows and Atl Atls: A Guide to the Archaeology of Beringia (National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 2013).Google Scholar
Douka, Katerina, Slon, Viviane, Jacobs, Zenobia, et al., “Age Estimates for Hominin Fossils and the Onset of the Upper Palaeolithic at Denisova Cave”, Nature 565 (2019): 640–644, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0870-z.Google Scholar
Fitzhugh, Ben, “The Origins and Development of Arctic Maritime Adaptations in the Subarctic and Arctic Pacific”, in Friesen, T. Max and Mason, Owen, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 252–278.Google Scholar
Flora, Janne, Johansen, Kasper L., Grønnow, Bjarne, Andersen, Astrid O., and Mosbech, Anders, “Present and Past Dynamics of Inughuit Resource Spaces”, in Kirsten Hastrup et al., eds., Ambio 47 (Supplement 2): The North Water: Interdisciplinary Studies of a High Arctic Polynya under Transformation (2018): 244–264.Google Scholar
Frølich, Bruno and Lynnerup, Niels, “Human Skeletal Remains from Qeqertasussuk: The Anthropology”, in Grønnow, Bjarne, ed., The Frozen Saqqaq Sites of Disko Bay, West Greenland: Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa (2400–900 bc). Studies of Saqqaq Material Culture in an Eastern Arctic Perspective. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 356 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2017), pp. 464–474.Google Scholar
Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Kivisild, Toomas, Grønnow, Bjarne, et al., “Paleo-Eskimo mtDNA Genome Reveals Matrilineal Discontinuity in Greenland”, Science Express (29 May 2008). Report and supporting online material, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1159750.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goebel, Ted, and Potter, Ben, “First Traces: Late Pleistocene Human Settlement of the Arctic”, in Friesen, T. Max and Mason, Owen, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 223–252.Google Scholar
Gómez Coutouly, Yan Axel, Gore, Angela K., Holmes, Charles E, et al., “Knapping, My Child, Is Made of Errors: Apprentice Knappers at Swan Point and Little Panguingue Creek, Two Prehistoric Sites in Central Alaska”, Lithic Technology (2020), 2–26, https://doi.org/10.1080/01977261.2020.1805201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graf, Kelly E., and Goebel, Ted, “The Paleolithic of Eastern Beringia from Western Alaska to Canadian Yukon”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic Press, 2017), pp. 312–338.Google Scholar
Gribchenko, Yuriy N., “Environments of the Northeastern East European Plain at the Time of the Initial Human Colonization”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic Press, 2017), pp. 105–133.Google Scholar
Grønnow, Bjarne, “The Backbone of the Saqqaq Culture: A Study of the Non-material Dimensions of the Early Arctic Small Tool Tradition”, Arctic Anthropology 49 (2012): 58–71.Google Scholar
Grønnow, Bjarne, The Frozen Saqqaq Sites of Disko Bay, West Greenland: Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa (2400–900 bc). Studies of Saqqaq Material Culture in an Eastern Arctic Perspective. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 356 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2017).Google Scholar
Grønnow, Bjarne, and Jensen, Jens Fog, The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe: Eigil Knuth’s Archaeological Investigations in Peary Land and Adjacent Areas of High Arctic Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 29 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2003).Google Scholar
Grønnow, Bjarne, Appelt, Martin, and Odgaard, Ulla, “In the Light of Blubber: The Earliest Stone Lamps in Greenland and Beyond”, in Gulløv, Hans Christian, ed., Northern Worlds: Landscapes, Interactions and Dynamics. Studies in Archaeology and History 22 (Copenhagen: National Museum, 2014), pp. 403–422.Google Scholar
Helmer, James W., “A Face from the Past: An Early Pre-Dorset Ivory Maskette from the Devon Lowlands, N.W.T.”, Inuit Studies 10 (1986): 179–202.Google Scholar
Helmer, James W., and Kennedy, Brenda V., “Early Paleo-Eskimo Skeletal Remains from North Devon Island, High Arctic Canada”, Canadian Journal of Archaeology 10 (1986): 127–143.Google Scholar
Hesjedal, Anders, Damm, Charlotte, Olsen, Bjørnar, and Storli, Inger, Arkeologi på Slettness: Dokumentasjon av 11.000 års bosetning. Tromsø Museums Skrifter 26 (Tromsø Museum, University of Tromsø, 1996).Google Scholar
Holmes, Charles E., VanderHoek, Richard, and Dilley, T. E., “Swan Point”, in West, F. H., ed., American Beginnings: The Prehistory and Palaeoecology of Beringia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), pp. 319–323.Google Scholar
Jeppesen, Erik, Appelt, Martin, Hastrup, Kirsten, et al., “Living in an Oasis: Rapid Transformations, Resilience, and Resistance in the North Water Area Societies and Ecosystems”, Ambio 47 (Supplement 2): The North Water: Interdisciplinary Studies of a High Arctic Polynya under Transformation (2018): 296–309.Google Scholar
Kleppe, Jan Ingolf, “Desolate Landscapes or Shifting Landscapes? Late Glacial/Early Post-Glacial Settlements of Northernmost Norway in the Light of New Data from Eastern Finnmark”, in Riede, Felix and Tallavaara, Miikka, eds., Lateglacial and Postglacial Pioneers in Northern Europe. BAR International Series 2599 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014), pp. 121–145.Google Scholar
Kleppe, Jan Ingolf, “The Pioneer Colonization of Northern Norway”, in Blankholm, Hans Peter, ed., Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change (Bristol: Equinox, 2018), pp. 13–58.Google Scholar
Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A., and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017).Google Scholar
Kunz, Michael L., and Reanier, Richard E., “The Mesa Site: A Paleoindian Hunting Lookout in Arctic Alaska”, Arctic Anthropology 32 (1995): 5–30.Google Scholar
Kuzmin, Yaroslav Y., “Central Siberia (the Yenisey-Lena-Yana Region)”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 213–237.Google Scholar
Meldgaard, Morten, Ancient Harp Seal Hunters of Disko Bay: Subsistence and Settlement at the Saqqaq Culture Site Qeqertasussuk (2400–1400 bc), West Greenland. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 30 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2004).Google Scholar
Odgaard, Ulla, “Hearth and Home of the Palaeo-Eskimos”, Études/Inuit/Studies 27 (2003): 349–374.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Jørn, Torp, Bjarke, Kaufmann, Laura Hauch, Kroon, Aart, and Jacobsen, Bjarne Holm, “The North East Greenland Sirius Water Polynya Dynamics and Variability Inferred from Satellite Imagery”, Danish Journal of Geography 110 (2010): 131–142.Google Scholar
Pitul’ko, Vladimir V., and Kasparov, Aleksey K., “Ancient Arctic Hunters: Material Culture and Survival Strategy”, Arctic Anthropology 33 (1996): 1–36.Google Scholar
Pitul’ko, Vladimir V., and Pavlova, Elena Y, Geoarchaeology and Radiocarbon Chronology of Stone Age Northeast Asia. Peopling of the Americas Publications (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Pitul’ko, Vladimir, Tikhonov, Alexei N., Pavlova, Elena Y., et al., “Early Human Presence in the Arctic: Evidence from 45,000-Year-Old Mammoth Remains”, Science 351 (2016): 260–263.Google Scholar
Pitul’ko, Vladimir V., Pavlova, Elena Y., Nikolsky, Pavel A., and Ivanova, V., “The Oldest Art of Eurasian Arctic: Personal Ornaments and Symbolic Objects from Yana RHS, Arctic Siberia”, Antiquity 86 (2012): 642–659.Google Scholar
Pitulko, Vladimir, Pavlova, Elena, and Nikolskiy, Pavel, “Revising the Archaeological Record of the Upper Pleistocene Arctic Siberia: Human Dispersal and Adaptations in MIS 3 and 2”, Quaternary Science Reviews 165 (2017): 127–148, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.04.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plumet, Patrick, Des mythes á la Préhistoire: Peuple du Grand Nord, Tome I (Paris: Editions Errance, 2004).Google Scholar
Plumet, Patrick, Vers l’ Esquimau: Du mammouth á la baleine. Peuples du Grand Nord, Tome II (Paris: Editions Errance, 2004).Google Scholar
Raghavan, Manasa, DeGiorgio, Michael, Albrechtsen, Anders, et al., “The Genetic Prehistory of the New World Arctic”, Science 345 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1255832.Google Scholar
Rankama, Tuija, and Jarmo, Kankaanpää, “From Russia with Love: Eastern Intruders in North Norwegian Mesolithic”, in Blankholm, Hans Peter, ed., Early Economy and Settlement in Northern Europe: Pioneering, Resource Use, Coping with Change (Bristol: Equinox, 2018), pp. 139–167.Google Scholar
Rasmussen, Morten, Li, Yingrui, Lindgren, Stinus, et al., “Ancient Human Genome Sequence of an Extinct Palaeo-Eskimo”, Nature 463 (2010): 757–762.Google Scholar
Riede, Felix, and Tallavaara, Miikka, eds., Lateglacial and Postglacial Pioneers in Northern Europe. BAR International Series 2599 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014).Google Scholar
Savelle, James M., and Dyke, Arthur, “Paleoeskimo Occupation History of Foxe Basin, Arctic Canada: Implications for the Core Area Model and Dorset Origins”, American Antiquity 79 (2014): 249–276.Google Scholar
Savelle, James M., Dyke, Arthur S., Whitridge, Peter J., and Poupart, Melanie, “Paleoeskimo Demography on Western Victoria Island, Arctic Canada: Implications for Social Organization and Longhouse Development”, Arctic 65 (2012): 167–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schledermann, Peter, Crossroads to Greenland: 3000 Years of Prehistory in the Eastern High Arctic. Komatik Series 2 (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary, 1990).Google Scholar
Schledermann, Peter, “Polynyas and Prehistoric Settlement Patterns”, Arctic 33 (1980): 292–302.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Anne Lisbeth, “Catalogue of Worked Skin Fragments from Qeqertasussuk”, in Grønnow, Bjarne, ed., The Frozen Saqqaq Sites of Disko Bay, West Greenland: Qeqertasussuk and Qajaa (2400–900 bc). Studies of Saqqaq Material Culture in an Eastern Arctic Perspective. Meddelelser om Grønland/Monographs on Greenland, Man and Society 356 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 2017), pp. 443–460.Google Scholar
Slaughter, Dale C., “Radiocarbon Dating the Arctic Small Tool Tradition in Alaska”, Alaska Journal of Anthropology 3 (2005): 117–133.Google Scholar
Slobodin, Sergey B., Anderson, Patricia M., Glushkova, Olga Y., and Lozhkin, Anatoly V., “Western Beringia (Northeast Asia)”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 241–298.Google Scholar
Slon, Viviane, Mafessoni, Fabrizio, Vernot, Benjamin, et al., “The Genome of the Offspring of a Neanderthal Mother and a Denisovan Father”, Nature 561 (2018): 113–116, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stirling, Ian, “The Biological Importance of Polynyas in the Canadian Arctic”, Arctic 33 (1980): 303–315.Google Scholar
Svendsen, John I., and Pavlov, Pavel Y., “Mamontova Kurya: An Enigmatic Nearly 40,000 Years Old Palaeolithic Site in the Russian Arctic”, in Zilhbo, J. and D’Errico, F., eds., The Chronology of the Aurignacian and the Transitional Technocomplexes: Dating, Stratigraphies, Cultural Implications. Trabalhos de Archaeologia 33 (Lisboa: Direção-Geral do Património Cultural, 2003), pp. 109–120.Google Scholar
Tremaine, Andrew H., and Rasic, Jeffrey T., “The Denbigh Flint Complex of Northern Alaska”, in Max Friesen, T. and Mason, Owen, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 349–370.Google Scholar
Velichko, Andrey A., Vasil’ev, Sergey A., Gribchenko, Yuriy N., and Kurenkova, Elena I., “Stages of the Initial Human Colonization of Arctic and Subarctic”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 509–530.Google Scholar
Volokitin, Alexander V., and Gribchenko, Yuriy N., “North of the East European Plain”, in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 75–152.Google Scholar
Zykin, Vladimir S., Zykina, Valentina S., Markin, Sergey V., and Orlova, Liybov A., “West Siberia,” in Kotlyakov, V. M., Velichko, Andrey A, and Vasil’ev, Sergey A., eds., Human Colonization of the Arctic: The Interaction Between Early Migration and the Paleoenvironment (London: Elsevier/Academic, 2017), pp. 179–188.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×