Supervised by:

James Woollett (Regular Member (Co-researcher))

Co-supervised by:

Dominique Todisco (Collaborator)

Research project description

Toward a market economy? XIXth century Inuit habitat archaeology at the end of the Little Ice Age in Northern Labrador, change in resources accessibility and cultural reactions

Introduction

At what point were the subsistence economies of non-sedentary Inuit oriented toward commercial issues and/or influenced by a change in resource accessibility in the context of climate warming? Is the gathering of such single-family semi-subterranean houses a testimony of a conciliation of communal social structure with the potentialities of an opportunist trapping? At what point does the occupations of the South Aulatsivik 6 site reveal a link between the dwelling shift and the social and cultural implication of the economic shift toward market economy during that period? Through a historical ecology and habitat archaeological study, defined as a continuum between household archaeology and landscape archaeology, this doctoral research adopts a triple perspective combining zooarchaeology, geoarchaeology and phenomenology, to document the chronology and the seasonality of the occupation of the South Aulatsivik 6 site, the subsistence strategies of the Inuit occupying the site, and the local environmental conditions during the XIXth century.

Study Sites

South Aulatsivik 6 site (Hd-Ci-20), located off the coast of Nain, Newfoundland and Labrador, presents a pattern which contrasts with a full investment toward market economy since the beginning of the XIXth century: it is constituted of eight single-family winter houses occupied during the second half of the XIXth century and a cabin occupied after the abandonment of the houses, at the end of the XIXth century; data from the midden deposits of the semi-subterranean houses show few reoccupations of the structures, and a diversified diet suggesting a food self-sufficient economy and occasional trapping.

Material and methods

The study of the taphonomy of midden deposits associated to the semi-subterranean houses will be combined to an experimental approach of the taphonomic processes involved in the deposition and burial of archaeological remains to document the chronology of the occupations of the site. Zooarchaeological and isotope analyses of archaeological remains (bones, shells and artefacts) will document substance economies of the inhabitants of the site and the contemporary local environmental conditions.

Expected results

Moravian archives show that, while some Inuit converted and established permanent dwellings in the vicinity of the missions, other perpetuated seasonal residential mobility. Owing to the social, cultural and spiritual implications of the adoption of a fur-trade centred economy, the reactions the Inuit have had to this colonial economic model may have been various. Furthermore, their choices in subsistence strategies may have been influenced by a change in resource accessibility, which may have occurred as a consequence of the end of the Little Ice Age (∼1350 – 1850).

Research Site Coordinates

Scientific Communications

Barbel, H., Todisco, D., Bhiry, N., 2020. A geochemical investigation of an Early Inuit semi-subterranean winter dwelling in a periglacial context. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 33: 102552. DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102552.

Barbel, H., Bhiry, N., Todisco, D., Desrosiers, P., Marguerie, D., 2019. Paaliup Qarmangit 1 site geoarchaeology: Taphonomy of a Thule‐Inuit semi‐subterranean dwelling in a periglacial context in northeastern Hudson Bay. Geoarchaeology, 34(6): 809-830. DOI: 10.1002/gea.21753.

Barbel, H., Bhiry, N., 2016. Géoarchéologie de la Vallée Paalliq 1, Baie De Kuuvik, Nunavik (Québec). Colloque du CEN 2016, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada.