{"title":"Traditional Aboriginal and Inuit Judicial Proceedings","authors":"Christophe Darmangeat","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.71","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.71","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article draws on a review of the literature to provide an inventory of procedures and sanctions relating to the exercise of justice and law in traditional Australian and Inuit societies—in the broad sense, the social management of conflicts. The Inuit conception of judicial action is highlighted, which, unlike Australian practices, emphasizes psychological and social dimensions rather than physical sanctions. Here, I use an analytical grid previously developed for Australia to classify the procedures observed among the Inuit. This approach is articulated around three formal criteria (symmetry, moderation, and designation) and reveals a sharp dichotomy in Inuit peoples between Alaska and the eastern Canadian and Greenlandic regions. The east is marked by the almost total absence of collective designation procedures, in any form whatsoever, with the possible and rare exception of the regulated battle. This absence explains the limited extent of warfare—at least, internal to the Inuit groups—and low-intensity feuding in this region. Alaska, contrarily, experienced several variants of collective actions, including feuds and judicial warfare.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135299014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tiina Väre, Titta Kallio-Seppä, Sanna Lipkin, Mikko Finnilä
{"title":"Breastfeeding in Late Medieval to Early Modern Iin Hamina, Finland, According to δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>15</sup>N Analyses of Archaeological Dentin","authors":"Tiina Väre, Titta Kallio-Seppä, Sanna Lipkin, Mikko Finnilä","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.57","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.57","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> This article explores infant feeding customs among the population of Iin Hamina, Ostrobothnia. The carbon (δ<sup>13</sup>C) and nitrogen (δ<sup>15</sup>N) stable isotope ratios are measured in the collagen of dentin segments of permanent first molars (M1) of individuals (n = 6) excavated from a local, discontinued churchyard dating from late medieval times to early modernity. A little later, in the mid-18th century, high infant mortality in regions such as the province of Ostrobothnia (currently part of Finland) would alarm Swedish officials. The assumption was that local, common women refused to breastfeed even the smallest babies. While the churchyard in Iin Hamina had not been used for over a century at this time, we hypothesize that breastfeeding practices were based on traditions that were slow to change. Nevertheless, the results show variation in the length of breastfeeding periods even within this very limited sample, but they do not generally imply the disregarding of breastfeeding of infants.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"78 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Examination of Indigenous Halibut Fishing Technology on the Northwest Coast of North America","authors":"Jacob Salmen-Hartley, Iain McKechnie","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.87","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.87","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract As global fish populations face threats from climatic change and human exploitation, the value of Indigenous knowledge and technology for guiding restoration and conservation efforts is gaining increasing recognition. Indigenous fishers on the Northwest Coast of North America traditionally employed sophisticated harvesting practices developed through long-term relationships with marine ecosystems, which promoted sustained harvests. Here we examine traditional Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) hook technology which has been shown to reduce bycatch of nontarget species and is often described as highly size-selective. We investigate this technology using ethnographic information, analysis of fishing equipment curated in museums, and measurements of modern halibut. We identify regional variation and overlap in hook styles, expand previously established hook typologies, and observe the greatest number of hooks and the most stylistic diversity originating from Haida Gwaii, a location where available zooarchaeological data indicates high halibut abundance. We demonstrate that two measurements (hook lip-gap and barb-area size) disproportionately influence the maximum and minimum body size. Based on hook and modern fish measurements, we estimate the sample of hooks targeted fish between 53 and 145 cm in length, indicating a broad but flexible size-selectivity that has presentday relevance for fisheries conservation, including nonmortality slot-limit fishing.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135298662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"In the Eye of the Beholder","authors":"Matilda I. Siebrecht, Sean P. A. Desjardins","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.39","url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> How archaeologists classify and categorize artifacts has the potential to direct and bias interpretations before analysis has taken place. A clear example of this phenomenon in arctic archaeology is the analysis of material culture classified as “art” attributed to premodern Tuniit peoples (Late Dorset Paleo-Inuit, ca. AD 500–1300). Often, analyses of Tuniit art pieces are restricted by the use of customary typologies that can impose modern assumptions of how Tuniit groups would have perceived their material culture. In this study, we address this problem by focusing not on the meaning embodied in the finished objects but on the identification of decision-making patterns of the object carvers and users as reflected through microscopic traces of manufacture and use. We argue that through such trace-focused observation, certain newly observed patterns may suggest greater diversity in decision-making processes (with regard to manufacture and use) than would be suggested by traditional typological grouping alone. This work has wide-ranging implications for how arctic archaeologists approach artifact classification and typological organization.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135255551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Asta Mønsted, Martin Appelt, Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, Claire Houmard, Antoine Zazzo, Sophie Cersoy, Olivier Tombret, Bjarne Grønnow
{"title":"An Early Inuit Workshop at a<i>Qassi</i>, a Men’s House, Nuulliit, Northwest Greenland","authors":"Asta Mønsted, Martin Appelt, Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, Claire Houmard, Antoine Zazzo, Sophie Cersoy, Olivier Tombret, Bjarne Grønnow","doi":"10.3368/aa.59.1.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.59.1.3","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent excavations in northern Greenland at the early Inuit site, Nuulliit, belonging to the Ruin Island Phase of the Thule culture, included a settlement area in front of House 30, a turf house ruin originally investigated by Holtved in 1947. A discussion of the interpretation of the feature as a qassi (a men’s house) is presented, and analyses of the spatial distributions of waste, tools, and preforms show that the area in front of the qassi served mainly as a workshop, where repair, recycling, and discard of hunting gear and tools took place. Walrus ivory tools, soapstone vessels, and blades of meteoric iron were produced. Training apprentices was an integral part of the activities, and small seals and birds were consumed in the workshop area. The workshop mainly dates to the 14th century AD. Norse iron was found, and a reevaluation of radiocarbon dates leads to a discussion of the early Inuit expansion into Greenland.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135299001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Wrapping the Body","authors":"Peter Whitridge","doi":"10.3368/aa.58.2.218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.58.2.218","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Miniature bodies performed multiple roles in past Inuit societies, as dolls, ornaments, personal amulets, and an assortment of magico-ritual devices. A particular genre of faceless, stub-armed wooden figurine is identical to those historically dressed in hide clothing and used primarily as girls’ playthings and, although reasonably common on Inuit sites, they have attracted relatively little archaeological attention. The figural overlap of dolls with other Inuit miniatures is meaningful and points to their wider social and discursive connectivity: dolls were manufactured by adults, didactically clothed by adult seamstresses and older girls, and animated in younger children’s imaginative play. Iconic constituents of a social technology of the body, dolls were tiny but richly vascularized ontobodies that were put to work in core cultural narratives regarding age, gender, selfhood, and the life course.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"58 1","pages":"218 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43038354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jason I. Miszaniec, C. Darwent, John Darwent, K. Eldridge
{"title":"Zooarchaeological Analysis of a Late Holocene Multicomponent Village Site near Shaktoolik, Norton Sound, Alaska","authors":"Jason I. Miszaniec, C. Darwent, John Darwent, K. Eldridge","doi":"10.3368/aa.58.2.154","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.58.2.154","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Artifact and settlement data suggest that precolonial subsistence strategies in northwestern Alaska went through an economic transition with increased importance placed on local fish and small game between AD 1400 and AD 1500. From a North American Arctic perspective, this process has been defined as “regionalization.” Here, we present results from a zooarchaeological analysis of over 31,700 faunal remains from the Shaktoolik Airport Site (NOB-072), a large multicomponent precolonial village site adjacent to the Native Village of Shaktoolik in Norton Sound, Alaska. Faunal specimens were derived from 1/4-inch (6.35-mm) screened and bulk sediment samples taken from midden deposits generated during two distinct archaeological or cultural phases from AD 1280 to the mid-1800s: 1) Nukleet, a regional variant of the Western Thule culture, and 2) three chronological periods associated with precolonial Yup’ik occupations. Comparison among archaeological deposits indicates that faunal assemblage composition varies spatially across the site and likely represents discrete seasonal activity areas. Faunal remains from bulk sediment samples also highlight the importance of small forage fish and shellfish, further emphasizing the need for sampling sites using fine-mesh screening. Based on our analysis, precolonial Yup’ik subsistence strategies diversified around AD 1500, coinciding with a broader regionalization trend. This shift may have been in response to the onset of the Little Ice Age (AD 1500–1850), but it could also have been in response to demographic pressure from increased regional populations.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"58 1","pages":"154 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47996839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Matthew J. Walsh, Daniel F. Carlson, Pelle Tejsner, Steffen Thomsen
{"title":"The Bear Trap","authors":"Matthew J. Walsh, Daniel F. Carlson, Pelle Tejsner, Steffen Thomsen","doi":"10.3368/aa.58.2.200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.58.2.200","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract A dry-stone structure known as the Bear Trap—“Bjørnefælden” in Danish and “Putdlagssuaq” (The Great Trap) in the local Greenlandic Kalaallisut—is a unique and enigmatic feature on the Arctic landscape of the Nuussuaq Peninsula in northwestern Greenland. Despite its suggestive name, the intended function of the Bear Trap has been the subject of scholarly debate since 1740. Here we present new findings on the Bear Trap, update the archaeological context of the site and its surroundings, and present the first three-dimensional (3D) digital reconstruction of the site and its surroundings. Investigations of the Bear Trap and its surroundings during the summer of 2019 revealed previously undocumented graves in the vicinity. Based on the newly discovered graves and quantitative data extracted from the 3D models, we concur with previous scholarly speculations (e.g., Rosenkrantz 1967) that the Bear Trap was possibly used as a grave or possible cenotaph rather than as a skemma, the typical stone storage structure of the Greenland Norse. In addition, we demonstrate the use of 3D modeling to digitally preserve cultural heritage in the rapidly changing Arctic and permit remote, quantitative analysis of archaeological sites.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"58 1","pages":"200 - 217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45023737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Katsunori Takase, M. Eda, M. Etnier, A. I. Lebedintsev
{"title":"Late Holocene Animal Use in Southern Kamchatka","authors":"Katsunori Takase, M. Eda, M. Etnier, A. I. Lebedintsev","doi":"10.3368/aa.58.2.125","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.58.2.125","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study purposed to reveal animal use in southern Kamchatka by examining the largest archaeofaunal collections recovered by Tamara M. Dikova and Nikolai N. Dikov. Radiocarbon dates of charcoal and caribou antler demonstrated that materials for this study were dated during the past 1,600 years, including three cultural periods: Nalychevo Culture (the 15–19th centuries AD), Tar’ya Culture (the mid-first millennium AD), and the intermediate period between them (the early second millennium AD). The taxonomical distribution suggested the significance of true seals and caribou as hunting games. Various roles of sites around Cape Lopatka for seasonal hunting, trade, and manufacturing bone tools were inferred based on bone composition. Caribou antlers, drift whale carcasses, and long bird bones were important materials for making bone tools. The first example of wolf eel and Steller’s sea cow remains associated with archaeological sites on the Siberian side of the North Pacific were also reported.","PeriodicalId":45997,"journal":{"name":"Arctic Anthropology","volume":"58 1","pages":"125 - 153"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45276390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}