<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><xml><records><record><source-app name="Biblio" version="6.x">Drupal-Biblio</source-app><ref-type>47</ref-type><contributors><authors><author><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Robert McGhee</style></author></authors></contributors><titles><title><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">The Causes of the Thule Decline</style></title></titles><dates><year><style  face="normal" font="default" size="100%">1993</style></year></dates><pub-location><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Montreal</style></pub-location><language><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">eng</style></language><abstract><style face="normal" font="default" size="100%">Thule culture flourished across Arctic Canada and Greenland between approximately A.D. 1000-1500. A period of decline, which is insecurely dated to the 16th century, is evidenced by the disappearance of Thule occupation from, the High Aretic Islands; the abandonment of permanent winter villages in favour of more transient forms of shelter, a decline in the importance of whaling-, and a general deterioration in many aspects of material culture. These events are generally explained as a response to the changing environmental conditions of the Little Ice Age. This paper suggests that factors related to European expansion, such as reduction of baleen whale populations and the introduction of Old World diseases to Eastern Arctic populations, may have contributed to the Thule culture decline as well as to the contemporaneous disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland.</style></abstract></record></records></xml>