Abstract

Besides J.L. Giddings' work on driftwood, mostly oriented on tree-ring dating(Giddings 1940-60), C.Arnold is the only archaeologist to have stressed the importance of wood for our understanding of Thule culture (Arnold 1994). Except for these, and for D. Lyaendecker's identifying wood from Baffin Island sites (Meta Incognita Project, Smithsonian Institution), nobody has yet attempted to construct a data base on woods from the American and Canadian Arctic. The reference frame presented will, in the long view, allow us to serve and upgrade our interpretation of archaeological remains. Woods from eight chosen sites add new information even on initial Thule migrations: importance and role of that material. Located along the North Alaskan coast and the Canadian archipelago and excavated at sundry times from the fifties through the eighties, these sites are dated back to the initial stages of Thule culture (Early Thule and Ruin Island phase). The endeavour through the present wood artifact analyses is stayed on cross-linking a). wood availability, collecting patterns, species selection, b). artifact function and needs, and c). artifact manufacture (wood working). Its aim is to get a glimpse on the technical level or traceable behaviour of Thule people. The artifact analyses, including large series of species identification of wooden artifacts found on each site, are concomitantly supplemented and hopefully supported by means of trial runs of neutron activation analyses (in collaboration with C. Stimmell, University of Toronto): the end purpose is to elaborate a methodology to differentiate driftwood from non-driftwood, in order to better understand the collecting patterns of woody materials (local collecting, exchange, special journeys). The preliminary results from an initial testing of driftwood, green wood, dead wood and archaeological wood allow us to assess the types of complexities entailed and more over the 'polluting agents' that need be taken into account when interpreting data. All told, the results are promising and exciting.