Inuit+History


 * == Several thousand years after the first people crossed the Bering Land Bridge into North America, other people came to North America by boats, crossing from Siberia across the Arctic Ocean to Alaska (7000-5000 BC) ==
 * == archaeologists call these people the pre-Dorset Culture; seem to have begun to leave Alaska about 4500 BC, when a warming period melted some of the Arctic ice, + they reached Greenland about 2500 BC ==
 * == hunted musk ox and reindeer in the north, and further south they hunted seal and caribou ==
 * == Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 AD (second wave) and spread eastwards across the Arctic ==
 * == displaced the related Dorset culture, the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture ==
 * == the legends refer to the Dorset as "dwarfs" ==
 * == researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, larger weapons and other technologies that gave the expanding Inuit society an advantage ==
 * == NunatuKavummuit were usually spread out among islands and bays and therefore did not establish stationary communities ==
 * == Inuit had trade relations with more southern cultures; boundary disputes were common and gave rise to aggressive actions ==
 * == first European contacts were with the Vikings who settled in Greenland and explored the eastern Canadian coast ==
 * == 986 AD- first Vikings arrived; abandoned settlement in 1408 AD b/c of Little Ice Age ==
 * == 13th century-the Thule culture began arriving in Greenland from what is now Canada ==
 * == after 1350- the climate grew colder during the period known as the Little Ice Age; Inuit were forced to abandon hunting and whaling sites in the high Arctic; had to subsist on much poorer diet ==
 * == changing climate forced Inuit to work their way south, forcing them into marginal niches along the edges of the tree line ==
 * == early period of settlement marked by extreme poverty, malnutrition, overcrowded housing conditions, + widespread disease ==
 * == sled dogs once essential to Inuit survival; used for transportation, hunting, + in extreme conditions, food ==
 * == extremely flexible kinship + political networks ==
 * ==US acquisition of Alaska from Russia enlightened government officials to "educate" the "wild + savage" Inuit natives; wanted to achieve literacy, teach Bible, preach Christianity, embrace principles of individual property ownership, + learn rudiments of an essentially agrarian lifestyle==
 * ==epidemics of first two decades of 20th century wiped out many Inuits==
 * == trapping became major economic activity; flourished until 1970's ==
 * == Inuit move onto permanent settlements in 1960's + introduction of snowmobile in 1970's altered use-value of sled dogs ==
 * ==Inuit feared losing their language; proposed conducting first years of school in Inuttitut==
 * ==institution of higher education has recently become more popular in Canadian North; instruction concerns skills for employment==
 * ==Inuit went from nomadic existence to sedentary + secure one within a modern settlement equipped w/ medical facilities, government housing, electricity, televisions, + radios==
 * ==trading of renewable resources is relatively new part of northern economy; trapping of foxes + hunting of seals, polar bears, + musk-oxen for pelts==