Inuit landscape use and responses to climate change in the Wollaston Forland - Clavering Ø region, Northeast Greenland

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The Thule culture of the Wollaston-Clavering Ø area is analysed and their settlement pattern as recorded within the area is presented and analysed in relation to the following high arctic seasons: winter, spring and summer. From the analysis it is seen that a defined and stable seasonal mobility between coast, fjords and inland existed and that the "Sirius Water Polynya" off Wollaston Forland and Sabine Ø, holds the key to understanding the human economy and settlement patterns in the research area, as well as in the region. The cooling of the Little Ice Age, interpreted from the analysed data, does not affect the Inuit exploitation of the research area or their material culture in general. The main Inuit response to the cooling is migration, a response that can only be analysed when Northeast Greenland is studied regionally and interregionally. As migration is defined as an important part of prehistoric 'Inuit being', the Inuit made no additional strategies or inventions during the LIA. Inuit migration is, in this way, demonstrated to be a substantial contributor to the Inuit's cultural resilience and to their long-term existence in the Arctic.

Original languageEnglish
JournalGeografisk Tidsskrift
Volume110(2)
Pages (from-to)155-177
Number of pages22
ISSN0016-7223
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Faculty of Humanities

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Inuit landscape use and responses to climate change in the Wollaston Forland - Clavering Ø region, Northeast Greenland'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this