The Walrus and the.... Paleoeskimo?

The immediate, short-term effects of a sudden prosperity are visible and well understood; exploitation increases, mobility patterns are adapted to the new resource, and social or cultural factors often follow suit. Meribeth Murray describes how a short-term abundance of walrus caused long-term changes in the socio-economic system of the Dorset Paleoeskimo culture that persisted into the Late-Dorset; long after walrus hunting had become less productive.

The Pre-Dorset culture is characterized by small ephemeral dwellings, high mobility, and a heavy reliance on ringed seal at the coast and caribou inland. Around 500BC, environmental changes produced an ideal habitat for walrus, particularly in Foxe Basin, the area of this study. This stable and abundant food source brought about changes leading to the Dorset culture, including larger and more permanent settlements, and increased storage. Walruses are large and dangerous marine mammals, and as such, walrus hunting is similar to whaling, which occurs in organized, hierarchical groups. Murray argues that the new form of harpoon heads show unique markings to claim ownership over the killed walruses because killing one of these large and dangerous animals was associated with prestige for the hunter.

On a larger scale, this increase in resource availability in the Foxe Basin promoted a more sedentary lifestyle involving longhouses, storage caches, and intensified walrus hunting. According to Binfod’s 1980 classification scheme, the Dorset culture experienced a shift from a residential mobility pattern to logistical organization. As groups became more associated with specific places on the landscape, group identity became more focused on the location and transcended the individual social relations, taking on a permanence that was not dependant on a particular individual or individuals.

Also, the increase in walrus availability was not uniform throughout the region inhabited by the Dorset culture, with the greatest abundance occurring in the Foxe Basin. This led to an accumulation of wealth and prestige by the Foxe Basin groups, a hierarchical trading structure, and more formalized inter-group relations.

Eventually, over-exploitation led to a decrease in walrus availability and the focus of hunting returned to the ringed seal, marking the transition to the Late-Dorset. However, the prestige relationships created in the Dorset culture were self-perpetuating and the traditions associated with this prestige, such as longhouses, continued beyond the time that they would have been beneficial to the Paleoeskimo people. Murray concludes that this short-term and localized abundance had long-lasting effects on the Dorset and Late-Dorset cultural identities.

This study of the socio-economic change associated with a changing resource base gives an interesting look at the cultural forces that would have been at play, an element that is often lacking in discussions of environmental and subsistence shifts. If this explanation of the social dynamics of is correct, it will provide another example against the strictly egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer groups, and an example of how the accumulation of wealth can begin. However, Murray provides little concrete evidence for her conclusions about how this played out in the social and cultural spheres, instead referring the reader to works by other archaeologists.

What she does not discuss are the changes in subsistence other than the decrease in reliance on ringed seal and intensification of walrus hunting (refer to figure 4 of Murray 1999). There appears to be a general broadening of resources exploited, with ringed seal remains decreasing from almost 90% to about 15% of the faunal assemblage, and the exploitation of arctic fox, bearded seal, caribou, walrus, fish and birds showing an increase. In particular, the most common remains found in the Dorset culture are those of arctic fox, which increases from nearly 0% to about 35%, a greater increase than is seen in walrus remains. Although walrus is much larger than fox, and would have provided a greater portion of the diet even if less frequently hunted, there appear to be other important trends that Murray does not mention and may have been as significant in the socio-economic prestige systems.

References

Binford, Lewis R.

1980. Willow Smoke and Dogs' Tails: Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems and

Archaeological Site Formation. American Antiquity. 45(1): 4-20.

Murray, Maribeth S.

1999. Local heroes. The long-term effects of short-term prosperity – an example from the Canadian Arctic. World Archaeology. 30(3): 466-483.