Environmental Factors in the Evolution of Dorset Culture: A Marginal Proposal for Hudson Bay

Abstract

Despite continued attention from archaeologists the origin of Dorset culture in the Eastern Arctic remains a persistent problem in northern prehistory. The transition from late Pre-Dorset to early Dorset culture is marked by a relatively rapid and consistent typological shift throughout a large geographic area at between about 1000 and 800 B.C. Although hampered by a distinct paucity of information, available chronological and distributional data do not supply a ready explanation for such consistent changes over such a wide-flung territory. However, the lack of a time slope and the presence of regional variants do not suggest that Dorset origins will be found in a single locale; rather, the transition appears to have occurred throughout a band of interacting populations within the core area of the eastern Central Arctic. Subsequent changes may be seen as a result of stylistic evolution, diffusion, and migration into more peripheral regions during the maximum extension of the Dorset sphere.