This collection of eighteen papers honours the long and productive career of Dr. William E. Taylor, Jr. They deal with a range of topics in Canadian Arctic archaeology from the Mackenzie Delta to Labrador and from the earliest Palaeoeskimo to historical questions such as the origins of the Copper Inuit and the mysterious demise of the Sadlermiut.

Attempts to arrange in sequence descriptions of adaptive technologies, tactics and strategies devised by the prehistoric Eastern Arctic Eskimos over nearly a 4000 year period.

The North American Arctic was one of the last regions on Earth to be settled by humans, due to its extreme climate, limited range of resources, and remoteness from populated areas. Despite these factors, it holds a complex and lengthy history relating to Inuit, Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Yup'ik and Aleut peoples and their ancestors. The artifacts, dwellings, and food remains of these ancient peoples are remarkably well-preserved due to cold temperatures and permafrost, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct their lifeways with great accuracy. Furthermore, the combination of modern Elders' traditional knowledge with the region's high resolution ethnographic record allows past peoples' lives to be reconstructed to a level simply not possible elsewhere. Combined, these factors yield an archaeological record of global significance--the Arctic provides ideal case studies relating to issues as diverse as the impacts of climate change on human societies, the complex process of interaction between indigenous peoples and Europeans, and the dynamic relationships between environment, economy, social organization, and ideology in hunter-gatherer societies. In the The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, each arctic cultural tradition is described in detail, with up-to-date coverage of recent interpretations of all aspects of their lifeways. Additional chapters cover broad themes applicable to the full range of arctic cultures, such as trade, stone tool technology, ancient DNA research, and the relationship between archaeology and modern arctic communities. The resulting volume, written by the region's leading researchers, contains by far the most comprehensive coverage of arctic archaeology ever assembled.

In this book, Lynne Kelly explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts. In the first part, she examines knowledge systems within historically recorded oral cultures, showing how the link between power and the control of knowledge is established. Analyzing the material mnemonic devices used by documented oral cultures, she demonstrates how early societies maintained a vast corpus of pragmatic information concerning animal behavior, plant properties, navigation, astronomy, genealogies, laws and trade agreements, among other matters. In the second part Kelly turns to the archaeological record of three sites, Chaco Canyon, Poverty Point and Stonehenge, offering new insights into the purpose of the monuments and associated decorated objects. This book demonstrates how an understanding of rational intellect, pragmatic knowledge and mnemonic technologies in prehistoric societies offers a new tool for analysis of monumental structures built by non-literate cultures.

11 papers discussing Canadian arctic archaeology.

Foreward by George Macdonald. Essays by eighteen contributors. Includes an abstract in French.

Betty Issenman examines all aspects of winter and summer Inuit clothing, going back 4000 years, with particular emphasis on northern Canadian Inuit. She also describes the kinds of material and tools used to make the clothing. The focus is on on Inuit clothing as protection, identity, and culture bearer, roles it has played for thousands of years. No other book brings together contemporary and historical material from the circumpolar worlds with original research. Sinews of Survival is a fascinating study of Inuit clothing, past and present. It includes over 200 illustrations of various kinds of clothing. The voices of the Inuit are heard throughout the text in quotations from consultations and the literature. By describing one component of Inuit society, the author opens a pathway to understanding the culture as a whole.

The culmination of forty years of research, The Language of the Inuit maps the geographical distribution and linguistic differences between the Eskaleut and Inuit languages and dialects. Providing details about aspects of comparative phonology, grammar, and lexicon as well as Inuit prehistory and historical evolution, Louis-Jacques Dorais shows the effects of bilingualism, literacy, and formal education on Inuit language and considers its present status and future. An enormous task, masterfully accomplished, The Language of the Inuit is not only an anthropological and linguistic study of a language and the broad social and cultural contexts where it is spoken but a history of the language's speakers.

Ujarak, Iqallijuq, and Kupaaq were elders from the Inuit community on Igloolik Island in Nunavut. The three elders, among others, shared with Bernard Saladin d’Anglure the narratives which make up the heart of Inuit Stories of Being and Rebirth. Through their words, and historical sources recorded by Franz Boas and Knud Rasmussen, Saladin d’Anglure examines the Inuit notion of personhood and its relationship to cosmology and mythology. Central to these stories are womb memories, narratives of birth and reincarnation, and the concept of the third sex—an intermediate identity between male and female. As explained through first-person accounts and traditional legends, myths, and folk tales, the presence of transgender individuals informs Inuit relationships to one another and to the world at large, transcending the dualities of male and female, human and animal, human and spirit. This new English edition includes the 2006 preface by Claude Lévi-Strauss and an afterword by Bernard Saladin d’Anglure.