Canada / NT / OdPc-5 / AA-40857

Lab number

AA-40857

Field number

00-DCA-121b-1

Material dated

charcoal; charbon de bois

Taxa dated

Picea sp. (665 mg, id. by R.J. Mott)

Locality

east of Woodward Point, northeast shore of Prince Albert Sound, Victoria Island, Northwest Territories

Map sheet

87 E/9

Submitter

A.S. Dyke and J.M. Savelle

Normalized Age

1318 ± 35

δ¹³C (per mil)

-25.7

Significance

Palaeoeskimo, Dorset; Paléoesquimau, Dorsétien

Context

House 1, hearth 6, 4.5 m asl

Additional information

The sample was leached in HCl, giving a moderate initial reaction.

Comments

OdPc-5 (00-DCA-121): Four Dorset longhouses occur at this site. Houses 1 and 2 are directly adjacent each other, separated by only 1 m and overlapping in length by 6 m. The seaward side of House 1 is at 4.5 m elevation. House 2 is inland of House 1 but not appreciably higher. Both are oriented along relict strandlines of coarse beach gravel. House 1 consists of two parallel hearth rows, one defining the seaward side, the other the inland side, with regularly spaced hearths. There are 15 hearths in each row and they are distinctly paired; that is, they are positioned opposite to each other. The seaward hearths are large, and the landward hearths smaller and less conspicuous. House 1 is 27.75 m long, 3.2 m wide at the east end and 3.5 m wide at the west end. House 2 is 23.95 m long, 5.0 m wide at the east end, and 4.7 m wide at the west end. It also has 15 hearths in each of two rows, and like House 1, the seaward hearths are the larger. Four metres inland of House 2 is a third parallel row of 15 hearths perfectly aligned with the "house." "Wall" heights are only a decimetre or so; that is the heights of the fallen-over box hearths. Four samples were collected from houses 1 and 2. From House 1: 121a (AA-40580), charcoal from beneath a floorstone in the 7th hearth from the west end of the seaward hearth row; 121b, two grains of charcoal, one with conspicuous growth rings from the surface of the top hearth floorstone (AA-40857) and one without consicuous growth rings from beneath the same stone in the 6th hearth from the west end of the seaward row (AA-40858); 121c, caribou antler and scapula from floor area. From House 2: 121d, burnt and unburnt bones from 2 hearths (10th & 11th from the west end) in the seaward row. House 3 is about 200 m east of the first two. This house is curved and it obliquely crosses one raised beach ridge and the swale to the seaward. The lower end of the feature is 5.5 m above high tide line. The curved length of the house is 24.55 m. It is 3.0 m wide at the east end and 2.8 m wide at the west end. Like houses 1 and 2, it is outlined by two parallel lines of hearths with 14 strong hearths in the seaward row and 12 in the landward row. The hearths are in opposite pairs with two gaps. Of the missing hearths in the inland row, one has been reused as an inukshuk in a caribou drive line that runs through the feature. The inland corner hearth is missing at the west end. Three samples were collected from this house: sample 121e (AA-41502) is charcoal collected from two hearths near the centre of the seaward row; sample 121f is a caribou metatarsal and two metatarsal shaft fragments collected from a box hearth but above the floorstone; sample 121g contains two pieces of unburnt driftwood, one of which had been wedged under a stone in a hearth, but above the floorstone, whereas the other was lying beside that hearth. House 4 is of a different style from the other three and is located farther inland at 8.5 m elevation. It is 31 m long, 5.35 m wide at the east end, and 5.9 m wide at the west end. It differs from the other three houses as follows: (1) large boulders, rather than flagstones, were used in its construction; (2) the inland walls are just as strong as the seaward walls; (3) individual hearths are difficult to identify but are obvious in the other three houses; (4) the perimeter stones appear to form true walls rather than hearth rows; and (5) it contains an axial alignment of circular to irregular boulder structures that appear to represent living areas or midpassage hearths, of which there are 14 or 15. An external box hearth measuring 40 x 55 cm is located 3 m north of this house. Two samples were collected from House 4: 121h (AA-41503), burnt tundra plants which had been preserved between two floorstones in the external hearth; and 121j, wood and bone (including ring seal and bird) fragments collected below several flagstones in the floor area of the house. House 4 was previously described by McGhee (1971: 165). He collected two artifacts here including a harpoon head regarded as characteristic of middle to late Dorset culture. He did not provide a radiocarbon date and he stated the elevation to be 60 feet [18 m]. About 200 m north of House 4 is a squarish Palaeoeskimo feature measuring about 3 x 3 m on very coarse beach gravel at 16.5 m elevation. Three ring seal phalanges were collected here (121k).

References

• Savelle and Dyke, 2002