Comer's Midden

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Comer's Midden
Created Thule culture
Discovered 1916
Present location Near Pituffik, Greenland
Map showing Thule location in northern Greenland
Map showing Thule location in northern Greenland

Comer's Midden is a 1916 archaeological excavation site near the "Arctic Station of Thule", north of Mt. Dundas (near Pituffik), in North Star Bay, Avannaa (North Greenland).[1][2][3] It is the find after which the Thule culture is named.[4] The site was first excavated in 1916 by whaling Capt. George Comer, ice master of the Crocker Land Expedition's relief team, and members of Knud Rasmussen's Second Danish Thule Expedition who were in the area charting the North Greenland coast.[5][6]

Contents

[edit] Excavation phases

1916

With his ship ice-bound, Comer made use of his time through an archaeological excavation just south of Arctic Station of Thule unearthing, amongst other things, a kitchen-midden made by paleo-Eskimos.[3] The site is named in honor of Comer and the midden that he found.[7][8][9]

1920s

Anthropologist Therkel Mathiassen accompanied Rasmussen's 5th Thule Expedition (1921—1924) that included a return to the Thule site. In Mathiasen's monumental[10] works of the 1920s and 1930s, he described Comer's Midden as "the only substantial find of pure Thule culture in Greenland".[11]

1930s and 1940s

The site was excavated by Erik Holtved in 1935 to 1937, and again in 1946 to 1947.[12][13]

[edit] Archaeological finds

Thule Greenlanders whaling, drawing by Hans Egede, 18th century
Thule Greenlanders whaling, drawing by Hans Egede, 18th century
Habitation periods

The site shows signs of having been inhabited from the 14th to the 20th century with the exception of the 17th and 18th centuries.[14]

Ruins

The site contains about 26 house ruins and several middens distributed over an area of about 120 m in width and stretching over 400 m inland with the midden Comer excavated located at its south end.[15] The majority of the houses were more or less rounded, typically around 3m to 5m across and most likely residential. One house was rectangular 4.5m by 6m, with narrow platforms along two of the walls, was probably a "qassi" or "mens' house" and was probably used as a workshop and for social gatherings.[16][17]

Artifacts

Subsequent to the initial finds, additional artifacts pertain to the Dorset culture,[18][19] as well as items of Norse origin.[20]

The vast majority of harpoon heads found are of the open socket type typical of the Thule culture.

[edit] Re-settlement

Thule Air Base, 2005
Thule Air Base, 2005

In 1910, Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen established a private trading post (Cape York station) at Thule (Greenlandic, Uummannaq), and a settlement area was established near it by local North Greenlandic Inuit.[3] In 1953, Uummannaq was converted into Thule Air Force Base, and Uummannaq's residents were relocated to Qaanaaq.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Thalbitzer, 1934
  2. ^ Dick, 2001
  3. ^ a b c Thule Forum, 2006
  4. ^ Birket-Smith, p. 548.
  5. ^ Wissler, p. 111.
  6. ^ Rasmussen, p. 117.
  7. ^ Ross, 1984
  8. ^ With the aid of Captain Comer, of the Crocker Land Expedition, a large kitchen-midden was dug out in Umanaq. Retrieved on 2008-03-31.
  9. ^ In the Cape York district the find from Comer's Midden is the datum.. Retrieved on 2008-03-31.
  10. ^ Meldgaard, p. 9.
  11. ^ Mathiassen, p. 409.
  12. ^ Holtved (1944), vol. I, p. 8.
  13. ^ Holtved (1954), p. 5.
  14. ^ Holtved (1954), p. 179.
  15. ^ Holtved (1944), vol. I, p. 110–12.
  16. ^ Holtved (1944), vol. I, pp. 128–30.
  17. ^ Gulløv, pp. 288–90.
  18. ^ Holtved (1944), vol. II, p. 10.
  19. ^ Holtved (1954), pp. 107–13.
  20. ^ Holtved (1944), vol. II, p. 26.

[edit] References

Coordinates: 76°34′N 68°50′W / 76.567, -68.833