Abstract

Lisa M. Hodgetts
The Changing Pre-Dorset Landscape of SW Hudson Bay, Canada
Journal of Field Archaeology 32 (2007) 353--367

The Pre-Dorset peoples were mobile hunter-gatherers who rapidly colonized the eastern Canadian Subarctic around 4000 B.P. (uncalibrated radiocarbon years) and continued to occupy the region until about 2700 B.P. In 2005, the Churchill Archaeological Project undertook excavations at two Pre-Dorset sites in SW Hudson Bay (northern Manitoba, Canada) near the southernmost extent of the Pre-Dorset range. The goal of the fieldwork was to examine the relationship between changes in the physical landscape and the social landscape of the region over the course of the Pre-Dorset period. It demonstrated that Pre-Dorset groups entered the area at least 700 radiocarbon years earlier than previously documented and illustrated marked differences in lithic technology between the early and late Pre-Dorset occupations. While the results suggest that the area may have been abandoned during the middle part of the Pre-Dorset period, further work is required in order to determine whether the region is a typical ''peripheral'' area as outlined in the ''core area'' hypothesis.

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