RAPID: Assessment of a Frozen Archaeology Site

Bowdoin College, Brunswick ME

Investigators

Abstract

This is a small RAPID award for PI Susan Kaplan to take advantage of a Parks Canada vessel and polar bear monitors free of charge for two weeks fieldwork in northern Labrador, Canada. This project will be a stability assessment of a Middle Dorset (800 CE to 1,000 CE; CE meaning Common Era or the equivalent of 1,216 years ago to 1,016 years ago) archaeological site (Avayalik-1) 25 miles south of the tip of Labrador. Worldwide archaeological heritage is under threat from environmental change; in the Arctic this is manifested as sea level rise and the accompanying storm surges eating way at coastal sites. As in other places in the Arctic, Avayalik-1 permafrost is melting causing changes in hydrology and the deterioration of fragile organic artifacts and faunal remains. This investigation will assess the vulnerability of archaeological sites in permafrost, which will contribute to discussions on how to assess, monitor, and preserve such sites. This information is of great interest to the scientific community, culture resource managers but also to the indigenous residents who are in many cases the decedents of the original occupants. Avayalik-1 is a scientifically unique site of Middle Dorset (pre Thule culture, the ancestors of modern Inuit people). Avayalik-1, last investigated in 1978, yielded organic artifacts and faunal remains unsurpassed in quantity and preservation by any other Labrador Middle Dorset sites due to the fact the ground was permanently frozen. However, with the current state of the Arctic and the rapidly thawing permafrost, many Arctic heritage sites thought for decades to be not endangered are now under threat. Avayalik-1 is such a site. This important project will assist archaeologists and culture heritage managers in determining whether the Avayalik-1 site is endangered, which would signal a potential loss of a critical Paleo-Inuit environmental and cultural record. In addition, new archaeometric and data techniques will be applied to the soil samples taken from the site, techniques not available in 1978 when the site was last studied. This data will help in assessing the full potential of the site for contributing to our understanding of how people have adapted to life in challenging environment sand how the ecology of the maritime North Atlantic has changed over time.