Referent: Prof. Dr. Bjarne Grønnow, The National Museum of Denmark - Ethnographic Collections, Kopenhagen

When and from where did the ancestors of the Inuit in Greenland come? How did they manage to settle all over the largest island on Earth and to cope with climatic and environmental changes as well as cultural encounters through the last millennium? Recent archaeological and scientific investigations initiated by the national museums in Denmark and Greenland address these questions and throw new light on these topics.

The guest lecture presents the results of our excavations in the High Arctic Thule area, where the first Inuit whale hunting societies arrived in the late 13th century AD through migrations from Alaska. Here they found an ‘Arctic oasis’ full of game and raw materials. They traded with their fellow Inuit groups in Canada and expanded their settlement to the entire island. These early Inuit developed into the strong ‘communal house societies’, which the first European whalers and traders and the first Danish/Norwegian colonizers encountered in the 17th - 18th century.

The lecture discusses how the Inuit hunting societies not only adapted to the natural and cultural changes but also managed to make a prosperous life in environments, which we in Europe consider remote and harsh.

Vortragsreihe: "Zeitenwenden - Klimawandel"
Der Vortrag findet im Rahmen der Wintervortragsreihe des Museums für Archäologie Schloss Gottorf statt. Die Reihe steht in diesem Jahr unter dem Motto: „Zeitenwenden - Klimawandel“.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des Fördervereins Archäologie Schloss Gottorf e.V. im Rahmen des Johanna-Mestorf-Kollegs.

Kosten
Eintritt frei

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Excavations at the 18th century archaeological site, Nipisat, where midden layers from an Inuit communal house have been exposed under a thick grass turf cover. © Bjarne Grønnow