Learning from the best: palaeo-Inuit novice flintknapping on southern Baffin Island
| dc.contributor.author | Hood, Elenore Grace | |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Oakes, Jill (Environment and Geography) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.examiningcommittee | Park, Robert (Anthropology) | en_US |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Milne, S. Brooke | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-04-06T18:58:12Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-04-06T18:58:12Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2022-03-31 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-03-31 | |
| dc.date.submitted | 2022-03-31T22:17:08Z | en_US |
| dc.degree.discipline | Anthropology | en_US |
| dc.degree.level | Master of Arts (M.A.) | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis investigates two aspects of Palaeo-Inuit lithic quarry use in the eastern Arctic. The first is the place of the LbDt-1 quarry in the established lithic reduction continuum on southern Baffin Island and to investigate how Palaeo-Inuit peoples structured their use of this site. The second is the social role of LbDt-1 as a place where novice flintknappers had their first opportunity to gain practical experience breaking rocks. A multi-method approach that combines individual attribute and aggregate analyses is applied to the lithic debitage from LbDt-1. The results indicate that lithic activities at LbDt-1 were limited to the earliest stages of the lithic reduction and a high frequency of novice mistakes point to use of the site by inexperienced flintknappers. Comparison of the LbDt-1 debitage assemblage to extant data from four Pre-Dorset habitation sites located in the interior and on the coast (Milne 2003) indicates a higher frequency of novice errors at the quarry and the two interior sites compared to the coastal sites. This suggests that the LbDt-1 quarry, and the interior region more generally, was the preferred location for novices to gain experience in flintknapping. Further, the debitage patterns identified at LbDt-1 represent only the earliest stages of lithic reduction and lack evidence of tool production. In this way, the LbDt-1 assemblage does not resemble a typical quarry, and contradicts the expectation of the field processing model that a quarry located at a significant distance from habitation sites would have debitage from the full reduction sequence (see Beck et al. 2002). Lithic activities at LbDt-1 did not emphasize efficient chert extraction, but rather the social decisions made by Palaeo-Inuit people, who had determined that the interior was the appropriate place for teaching novices to flintknap (Milne 2014:110). The abundance of chert available in the interior compared to on the coast was no doubt a significant determinant in the association of the interior region with chert procurement and novice learning (Milne 2003, 2005, 2014). | en_US |
| dc.description.note | May 2022 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1993/36403 | |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en_US |
| dc.rights | open access | en_US |
| dc.subject | Baffin Island | en_US |
| dc.subject | lithic quarry | en_US |
| dc.subject | chert | en_US |
| dc.subject | novice | en_US |
| dc.subject | flintknapping | en_US |
| dc.subject | field processing model | en_US |
| dc.subject | Palaeo-Inuit | en_US |
| dc.subject | Pre-Dorset | en_US |
| dc.subject | Dorset | en_US |
| dc.subject | lithic | en_US |
| dc.subject | quarry | en_US |
| dc.subject | apprenticeship | en_US |
| dc.title | Learning from the best: palaeo-Inuit novice flintknapping on southern Baffin Island | en_US |
| dc.type | master thesis | en_US |