The Emergence of the Dorset Culture

The Paleo-Eskimo occupants of the east arctic adapted by developing new tools and weapons that made their daily life easier.  The changes that took place are referred to by archaeologists as the development of the Dorset culture.  Unlike their Paleo-Eskimo predecessor who could not survive, the Dorset made a successful adaption to a climate that was cooling, by expanding populations and developing new technology.  These Dorset descendants of the Paleo-Eskimo were interdependent and relied on the community for support, as long as the community was able to break off into small self-sufficient groups.

Advances in Technology

The technological advances also created puzzling characteristics in Dorset culture such as the switch from drills to gougers that created elongated holes.  The Dorset and the Thule came from different bloodlines; Paleo-Eskimo ancestor evolved to create the Dorset culture, and Thule ancestry led to the evolution of the Inuit descendants.  Excavation shows that Dorset technology is vastly different from Inuit technology in that the Dorset builders used stone tools and the Inuit used metals. 

Envision

Like the northern cultures, the Dorset must have created poems and creative narratives, worn delicately decorated clothing, and had a tradition of carving hard organic into small figures material that are perfectly preserved in the excavation site.  These carvings were the concrete evidence that allowed Jenness to validate his finding of the Dorset culture that he noted.

Ivory maskette
Dorset culture
(circa A.D. 1-500)
Hudson Strait, Arctic Canada
KbFk-7:308
Photo: Harry Foster

This classic Dorset depiction of a face comes from an early site. It contrasts with the European-like faces sometimes portrayed in later Dorset carvings.

Contact and Iinfluence

The encounters that the Dorset may have experienced include peoples such as: Siberian Chukchi, Dene, Innu, Norse and other smaller tribal bands such as, the Denbigh Flint Complex.  Denbigh influenced the Dorset in their technology and tools.  This chapter objectively describes the influences a culture would face in the encounter of another race of people.  Such finds suggest that originally the bow and arrow hunting system was introduced into North American Indian culture through transference by the Paleo Eskimo.  Its ultimate origins are from Asiatic Siberia. 

The End of the Dorset Culture

The leading environmental changes that Dorset culture faced in 1000 AD presented the challenge of predicting the duration of sea ice.  An ice covered strait would provide adequate leverage for the Dorset for they depend on it as a primary hunting platform.  If the ice sheets failed to freeze, the walrus that was hunted by ice-edge hunters would have dispersed as they explored open water making them hard to hunt.  The hunters and families would have faced starvation or displacement.     
In the late Dorset expansion, artifacts had kept a consistent form through out their existence.  Trading ideas and tools to foreign groups, the Dorset culture gained a richer living and flourished until the 1500 AD.   The Dorset managed to deal a significant amount of energy expended in creating art objects during the Late Dorset period.  Unfortunately, the Dorset suffered a great decline in culture and economy due to external elements.  Years later when Brooman Point was discovered, excavation yielded finds of two different inhabitants that lived in that site.  Before Inuit occupation Dorset Culture lived in long houses for more than a Millenium.  During the medieval warming period gave rise to the Tully Inuit invader who took control of food, fuel, and other resources.  Twenty winter houses, whale bone rafters, and turf that the Inuit used for their housing materials surfaced in excavation of the Brooman Point.  Dorset culture may have survived genetically, materially, and linguistically through the Inuit.