Thule society

Savelle 2002 explains the logistical and social organization of Thule, which was responsible for the movement of settlement pattern in prehistoric Thule whaling societies in Central Canadian arctic. The prehistoric Thule Eskimo culture was flourished in Northern Alaska shortly before 1000 A.D., and by around 1200-1450 A.D., much of the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA), adjacent to coastal mainland, and Northwestern Greenland was occupied by Thule societies. In most of the CAA region, the subsistence of Thule culture was entirely based on bow head whaling, which is evident from high amount of skeletal remains of whales in prehistoric Thule habitational sites. In contrast to the other parts of central CAA regions, mostly the Arctic mainland coastal region, King William Islands and Victoria Island region, bow head whales were not an important component of Thule diet mostly during classical or Prehistoric Thule period. At around 1400-1450 A.D., many settlements in CAA region was abandoned, and in far southern region the permanent wither villages were abandoned in favor of less substantial and less permanent dwellings and was then eventually replaced by snow Igloos. The emphasis was given to the effect of the little ice age, which affected the availability of many marine source, and increased the extant and duration of summer ice coverage, resulted in a fewer migratory sea mammals availability, particularly the migratory whale. This sift of resource availability was held responsible for the shift from permanent winter villages to temporary villages, and seasonal residential movements.

The present author, questions this notion of belief, and argues that why such movement is noticed only among the whaling Thule societies? Did th...

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...right of distribution, but not on the right self possession. Though he believes that European contact definitely brought some change in the Inuit social organization, but that does not mean that this was the reason for change is entire settlement system.

The alternative theory proposed by the author is based on the fact that the emergence of communal house was to produce communally, and by circumcised sharing arrangement within the community, they could deal with the scarcity of food and as well as the scarcity of traded goods, which was also not easily available. According to him, formation of communal house was not to ignite the differentiation, but to it increase the communalism, because separate groups share a common interest in the process of production, consumption and exchange, and by mutual support and sharing they could deal with the productive uncertainty.