A discovery by archaeologists on a remote island in the High Arctic could challenge past assumptions about ancient seafaring technology.
An ancient campsite that dates back nearly 4,500 years was uncovered at Kitsissut, an island group located between mainland Greenland and Ellesmere Island, as detailed in a study published earlier this year in the journal Antiquity.
The findings point to the existence of surprisingly advanced nautical capabilities possessed by Bronze Age inhabitants of Canada, revealing that these ancient arctic seafarers may have traversed oceanic areas of the northernmost polar regions of Earth.
Voyages of the Ancient Mariners
The earliest known voyages between Greenland and Canada are believed to have occurred around the 13th century, when Thule Inuit master navigators made their way from Canada to Greenland, eventually settling and becoming the ancestors of modern Greenlandic Inuit.
Centuries later, crossings in the opposite direction would take place, marking some of the first major European exploratory voyages, which include Norse explorers like Leif Erikson sailing from Greenland and reaching Eastern Canada around 1000 A.D. With time, Viking seasonal outposts would be established on Ellesmere Island for purposes of hunting and trade.
However, the discovery of an encampment predating such voyages by thousands of years could potentially reframe our current understanding of ancient Arctic seafaring and how early it was occurring in that region.
Early Paleo-Inuit Seafaring
In the recent study by researchers Matthew Walls, Mari Kleist, and Pauline Knudsen, the team investigated early use of Paleo-Inuit watercraft, based on features recently uncovered in archaeological work at Kitsissut.
“Kitsissut can be accessed only by crossing a difficult stretch of water that remains open (i.e., not ice-bound) year-round,” the researchers write, “thus the presence of Early Paleo-Inuit features permits inference on certain parameters of watercraft design and navigational ability.”
“Beyond a greater understanding of technology, this discovery demonstrates that Early Paleo-Inuit had species relationships that bridged terrestrial and marine systems,” the researchers argue, adding that the evidence uncovered at Kitsissut showcases not only a way of life that heavily incorporated maritime practices, but that ancient watercraft technologies actually played “a central role in subsistence, social organization and ecological agency.”
“This expanded view is significant in the context of a changing circumpolar world and opens new questions about the influence of Early Paleo-Inuit communities in the deep ecological structure of High Arctic environments,” the authors write.
New Perspectives on Ancient High Arctic Voyages
According to Walls, Kleist, and Knudsen, the technological capabilities displayed by ancient mariners who reached Kitsissut 4,500 years ago reveal more than just the fact that Bronze Age sailors could reach this rocky outcrop of islands: it also raises meaningful questions about how these early Paleo-Inuit people interacted with their environment.
For instance, ancient coastal dwellers who could sail to this region of the High Arctic at such early dates must have possessed a well-established system of construction and maintenance for the watercraft they used. The vessels would likely have been constructed using not just wood, but also sea-mammal skins and other specialized materials. Further, making these early voyages would have also required well-developed open-water navigational capabilities, which would have allowed these early seafarers to make repeated trips to Kitsissut.
In short, the Paleo-Inuit who made these voyages, the authors write, hadn’t merely adapted to life in the Arctic—these people “would have been actively embedded within its marine and terrestrial systems,” the researchers argue. This is of fundamental importance because past studies of the polynya (which refers to stretches of open water surrounded by ice, such as those found in the Arctic) undertaken by environmental researchers and conservationists have largely viewed dynamics in the region during this period as completely natural processes, rather than the outgrowth of interactions between ancient humans exploring a new environment.
“Early Paleo-Inuit voyages to Kitsissut reveal an environmental convergence, where choices, technologies and actions were inseparable from the dynamic world of the polynya,” the authors write, a reality they say challenges archaeologists “to rethink how the cultural and environmental accounts of the polynya are aligned.”
Upending Past Assumptions
Fundamentally, the researchers argue that past long-held assumptions that the early Paleo-Inuit mainly relied on hunting on the mainland overlook the fact that, at the time of their initial arrival in the region, the ecosystem in which they now found themselves had not fully developed.
This, for Walls, Kleist, and Knudsen, raises an even more important possibility.
“The ability to reach Kitsissut, and the technological, social and ecological implications of that ability, brings a new question into focus: were Early Paleo-Inuit not just adapting to ecological conditions but actively shaping them?”
The recent study, “Voyage to Kitsissut: a new perspective on Early Paleo-Inuit watercraft and maritime lifeways at a High Arctic polynya,” was published in the journal Antiquity.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.