Abstract

The availability of wood in the Eastern Arctic differs from that in the Western Arctic. The present study contributes to showing how the Thule people, in their eastern migration, adapted their needs and techniques to the new wood availibility patterns they encountered. Wood is more rarely found than in the West; the arrival of driftwood in the East is less predictable and more irregular. The low species diversity in driftwood accumulations makes it more difficult to determine the choices Thule people made during the various stages of wood processing. We sought to identificy and determine the mechanical characteristics of the collected materials in order to understand their selection for specific functions. However, it remains to be understood how far these technical choices were conditionned by ressource accessibility alone.