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Cultural history in Nunavut

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Inuit describes the various groups of indigenous peoples who live throughout Inuit Nunangat, that is the Inuvialuit Settlement Region of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut of Northern Canada, Nunavik in Quebec and Nunatsiavut in Labrador, as well as in Greenland. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
The traditional lifestyle of the Inuit is adapted to extreme climatic conditions; their essential skills for survival are hunting and trapping. Agriculture was never possible in the millions of square kilometres of tundra and icy coasts from Siberia to Northern America and Greenland. Therefore, hunting became the core of the culture and cultural history of the Inuit. Thus, the everyday life in modern Inuit settlements, established only some decades ago, still reflects the 5,000-year-long history of a typical hunting culture which allowed the Inuit peoples and their ancestors to achieve one of the most remarkable human accomplishments, the population of the Arctic.
Europeans in North America used to refer to the Inuit as Eskimos, but the people consider that term pejorative. The primary reason some people consider Eskimo derogatory is the questionable but widespread perception that in Algonquian languages it means "eaters of raw meat." One Cree speaker suggested the original word that became corrupted to Eskimo might indeed have been askamiciw (which means "he eats it raw"), and the Inuit are referred to in some Cree texts as askipiw (which means "eats something raw").
The word Inuit is the autonym, the name which the people use for themselves and it means "the people." Its singular form is Inuk.
Early periods of cultural history
  • Paleo-Arctic Tradition
  • Anangula Tradition
  • Western Arctic
  • Ocean Bay I
  • Northern Archaic tradition
  • Western Arctic
  • Takli Culture
  • Arctic small tool tradition (spreads eastward)
  • Eastern Arctic
  • Eastern Arctic Small Tool Tradition groups c. 3000 - 500 BCE
Overview of cultural history
  • Saqqaq culture 2400-900 BCE
Western ArcticPeriod I (9000 - 5000 BCE)
Period II (5000 - c. 2000 BCE)
Period III (c. 2000 - 1000 BCE)
Archaeologists are certain that the predecessors of today's Inuit originated in the area of the Bering Strait, which separates Asia and North America. The first Inuit group, known as Paleo-Eskimos, crossed the Strait in 3000 BCE presumably on winter ice, which was long after earlier migrations by the ancestors to the North American Indians. Archaeological finds have revealed that the Paleo-Eskimos moved to the northern Canadian Arctic in 2300 BCE, apparently because of a change in climate. From there they gradually followed the herds of game across the Arctic to Greenland, and dispersed into more distinct nomadic tribes.
Independence I culture 2300 BCE-1500 BCEPre-Dorset culture is said to begin when the Paleo-Eskimos settled on the islands of the Canadian archipelago and northern Greenland. The descriptions "Dorset" and "Pre-Dorset" come from Cape Dorset on Baffin Island, the source of an assemblage which in 1925 anthropologist Diamond Jenness identified as originating from a hitherto unknown "Dorset culture." The Paleo-Eskimos weathered the winter of the high Arctic with much more difficulty than their later descendants because they lacked technologies such as boats, harpoon-tips, dog sleds, dwellings other than skin tents, and sources of warmth other than small fire pits and wood fuels. In the central Canadian Arctic, they mainly hunted muskoxen and caribou with bow and arrow, and fished with barbed devices. Groups living near the coastline hunted seals, walruses and smaller whales by throwing harpoons from the shore or from sea ice.
This Paleo-Eskimo culture was named after Independence Fjord, where traces of a large settlement were found. Their lodgings were erected on elliptical foundations centred upon box-shaped hearths made of flat stones set on end. These they filled with driftwood, musk ox dung, and bones. They might have started fires with the help of a bow drill operated by sinews, which was in general use some centuries later.
In the western and southern parts of the eastern coast of Greenland, the Saqqaq culture developed around 2300 BCE and lasted 1500 years. The centre of their settlements was Disko Bay near the place Saqqaq, which lent its name to the culture. The people extended their culture along the fjords and coastlines in the area. The culture of the Saqqaq people shows marked similarity to the culture that in the Canadian Arctic is described as "Pre-Dorset", and the two cultures developed around the same time. Scholars believe that the people of the Saqqaq split off from the Pre-Dorset culture, migrated into Greenland from Ellesmere Island in the north, and later migrated to the southern coast

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