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At the edge: High Arctic Walrus hunters during the Little Ice Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Bjarne Grønnow ,
Hans Christian Gulløv ,
Bjarne Holm Jakobsen ,
Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen ,
Laura Hauch Kauffmann ,
Aart Kroon ,
Jørn Bjarke Torp Pedersen  and
Mikkel Sørensen
Bjarne Grønnow
Affiliation:
SILA — Arctic Centre at the Ethnographic Collections, National Museum of Denmark, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, DK-1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Hans Christian Gulløv
Affiliation:
SILA — Arctic Centre at the Ethnographic Collections, National Museum of Denmark, Frederiksholms Kanal 12, DK-1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Bjarne Holm Jakobsen
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen
Affiliation:
Zoological Museum, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark
Laura Hauch Kauffmann
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Aart Kroon
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Jørn Bjarke Torp Pedersen
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
Mikkel Sørensen
Affiliation:
Department for Prehistoric Archaeology, The SAXO Institute, University of Copenhagen, Njalsgade 80, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark
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Extract

A multi-disciplinary study of settlement in north-east Greenland found that life in this High Arctic zone was actually favoured by the climate brought in by the Little Ice Age (fifteenth–nineteenth century). Extensive ice cover meant high mobility, and the rare polynyas — small patches of permanently open coastal water — provided destinations, like oases, where huge numbers of migrating marine mammals and birds congregated. One such place was Walrus Island on Sirius Water, a veritable processing plant for walrus, where every spring Thule people stocked up meat supplies that would get the rest of the region through the winter. It was a further drop in the temperature in the mid nineteenth century that led to the region being abandoned.

Keywords

GreenlandLittle Ice AgeThule culturewalrus
Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 329 , September 2011 , pp. 960 - 977
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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