Posted on 09/15/2008 8:58:05 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Vikings - or perhaps other Europeans - may have set up housekeeping and traded with Inuit 1,000 years ago near today's community of Kimmirut. That's the picture of the past emerging from ancient artifacts found near Kimmirut, where someone collected Arctic hare fur and spun the fur into yarn and someone else carved notches into a wooden stick to record trading transactions. Dorset Inuit probably didn't make the yarn and tally sticks because yarn and wood weren't part of Inuit culture at that time, said Patricia Sutherland, an archeologist with the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Other artifacts from the area, such as a small wooden carving of a mask, missing its nose, also suggest face-to-face contacts with Europeans. That's because, although the mask is carved in a Dorset Inuit manner, it shows a long and possibly bearded face with straight and heavy eyebrows, wearing what may be Viking headgear...
The dating of microscopically identified rat droppings found near Kimmirut may hold the key to learning more about the timing and origin of contact with Europeans, Sutherland said. If there were rats in south Baffin, it shows European ships were also in the area because "rats aren't found in the Arctic." Further analysis of the rat droppings is expected to provide even more information about exactly where these ships called, Sutherland said. Many scholars already believe Baffin Island was Helluland, the name the Vikings' sagas gave to the land of rocks and glaciers they found west of Greenland...
Dating of some yarn and other artifacts, presumed to be left by Vikings on Baffin Island, have produced an age that predates the Vikings by several hundred years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nunatsiaq.com ...
Analysis on ancient yarn spun from Arctic hare fur, which was found near Pond Inlet, shows the yarn may pre-date the arrival of the Vikings. Similar yarn and cordage has been found near Kimmirut as well as in Greenland. (Photo Courtesy Of Patricia Sutherland)
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This is a nasty kick in the Nunatsiaq to isolationists. |
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My grandfather could spin a good yarn too.
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