Abstract

One of the problems with researching the nature of early culture contact between Thule Inuit and Europeans is the slight material evidence, particularly of metal artifacts which seldom survive in archaeological sites. Their relative absence archaeologically gives the false impression that metal use was peripheral to Thule adaptation when, in fact, metal was highly valued. Metal, in the form of iron extracted from meteors and native copper ore, was widely used throughout the Arctic prior to European contact. The principal evidence for Thule epimetallurgy (the use, but not the production of metal) comes from blade slot widths in the surviving tool handles. These slots are characteristically thinner than those which held stone blades. Allen McCartney has suggested that Thule metal use accelerated after 1600 due to the 'great influx' of metal from European contact. Based on the analysis of bladed tools from prehistoric and early historic Inuit sites in Frobisher Bay, I quantify the chronological patterning of Thule Inuit metal use and suggest that prehistoric Inuit use of metal was far greater than previously thought and that during Elizabethan (16th century) contact and shortly afterwards, less metal was used by the Inuit of Frobisher Bay than in the prehistoric era. In Frobisher Bay, it appears that there was no significant increase in metal use until the late 19th/early 20th century. This finding has important consequences for our conceptions about 'first contacts'.