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Birnirk Culture
The Birnirk culture was a prehistoric Inuit culture of the north coast of Alaska, dating from the sixth century A.D. to the twelfth century A.D. The Birnirk culture first appeared on the American side of the Bering Strait, descending from the Old Bering Sea/Okvik culture and preceding the Thule culture; it is distinguished by its advanced harpoon and marine technology. A burial mound of the Birnirk culture was discovered in the town of Wales; 16 more have been found in Utqiagvik at the " Birnirk site," which is now a National Historic Landmark. An ancient Birnirk village has been found at present-day Ukpiaġvik. Culture The Birnirk people lived in small single family dwellings containing either a long or short entrance that led to a single room with sleeping platforms. Houses lacked open fireplaces; instead, heat and light were provided by stone and clay lamps. Birnirk settlements are thought to have been small, with only a few families living in a settlement at a time. As ...
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Inuit History
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Alaska. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut. Inuit live throughout most of Northern Canada in the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in the northern third of Quebec, Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut in Labrador, and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean, in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. With the exception of NunatuKavut, these areas are known, primarily by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, as Inuit Nunangat. In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 classify Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians who are not includ ...
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Ipiutak Site
The Ipiutak site is a large archaeological site at Point Hope in northwest Alaska, United States. It is one of the most important discoveries in this area, competing only with Ekven, Russia. It is the type site for the Ipiutak culture, which arose possibly as early as 100–200 BCE and collapsed around 800 CE. The Ipiutak culture occurred from south of the Bering Strait, across the Brooks Range and possibly as far north as Point Barrow. The Ipiutak site was discovered in 1939 by archaeologists Helge Larsen and Froelich Rainey, who completed a monograph on the site in 1948. The site consists of nearly 600 abandoned house depressions along four beach ridges that impart a linearity that was originally interpreted as purposeful design as roads or "avenues." Many of the houses are too close to be contemporaneous and the range of several radiocarbon ages suggests a duration of 300–400 years to build all of the houses. Archaeologists have modeled the population history of t ...
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Dorset Culture
The Dorset was a Paleo-Eskimo culture, lasting from to between and , that followed the Pre-Dorset and preceded the Thule people (proto-Inuit) in the North American Arctic. The culture and people are named after Cape Dorset (now Kinngait) in Nunavut, Canada, where the first evidence of its existence was found. The culture has been defined as having four phases due to the distinct differences in the technologies relating to hunting and tool making. Artifacts include distinctive triangular end-blades, oil lamps () made of soapstone, and burins. The Dorset were first identified as a separate culture in 1925. The Dorset appear to have been extinct by 1500 at the latest and perhaps as early as 1000. The Thule people, who began migrating east from Alaska in the 11th century, ended up spreading through the lands previously inhabited by the Dorset. There is no strong evidence that the Inuit and Dorset ever met. Modern genetic studies show the Dorset population were distinct from la ...
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Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is the world's largest island. It is one of three constituent countries that form the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark and the Faroe Islands; the citizens of these countries are all citizens of Denmark and the European Union. Greenland's capital is Nuuk. Though a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers) for more than a millennium, beginning in 986.The Fate of Greenland's Vikings
, by Dale Mackenzie Brown, ''Archaeological Institute of Americ ...
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Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching , is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces an ...
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Thule People
The Thule (, , ) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by the year 1000 and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region. The appellation " Thule" originates from the location of Thule (relocated and renamed Qaanaaq in 1953) in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden. The links between the Thule and the Inuit are biological, cultural, and linguistic. Evidence supports the idea that the Thule (and also the Dorset, but to a lesser degree) were in contact with the Vikings, who had reached the shores of Canada in the 11th century as part of Norse colonization of North America. In Viking sources, these peoples are called the '' Skrælingjar''. Some Thule migrated southward, in the "Second Expansion" or "Second P ...
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Haplogroup A (mtDNA)
In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup A is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup. Origin Haplogroup A is believed to have arisen in Asia some 30,000–50,000 years BC. Its ancestral haplogroup was Haplogroup N. However, the extant diversity of mitochondrial genomes that belong to Haplogroup A is low relative to the degree of divergence from its nearest outgroups in haplogroup N, which suggests that extant members of Haplogroup A might be descended from a population that has emerged from a bottleneck approximately 20,000 years ago. Its highest frequencies are among Native Americans, its largest overall population is in East Asia, and its greatest variety (which suggests its origin point) is in East Asia. Thus, it might have originated in and spread from the Far East. Distribution Its subclade A2 shares a T16362C mutation with subclades A1 (found in Japan, Tashkurgan, Veliky Novgorod, Mongols, and Altaians), A6 (found in Tibet and in the Yangtze River basin), A ...
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MtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is only a small portion of the DNA in a eukaryotic cell; most of the DNA can be found in the cell nucleus and, in plants and algae, also in plastids such as chloroplasts. Human mitochondrial DNA was the first significant part of the human genome to be sequenced. This sequencing revealed that the human mtDNA includes 16,569 base pairs and encodes 13 proteins. Since animal mtDNA evolves faster than nuclear genetic markers, it represents a mainstay of phylogenetics and evolutionary biology. It also permits an examination of the relatedness of populations, and so has become important in anthropology and biogeography. Origin Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA are thought to be of separate evolutionary origin, with the mtDNA being derived from t ...
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Science (journal)
''Science'', also widely referred to as ''Science Magazine'', is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world's top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, is currently circulated weekly and has a subscriber base of around 130,000. Because institutional subscriptions and online access serve a larger audience, its estimated readership is over 400,000 people. ''Science'' is based in Washington, D.C., United States, with a second office in Cambridge, UK. Contents The major focus of the journal is publishing important original scientific research and research reviews, but ''Science'' also publishes science-related news, opinions on science policy and other matters of interest to scientists and others who are concerned with the wide implications of science and technology. Unlike most scientific journals, which focus on a specific field, ''Science'' and its rival ''Nature'' cover the full r ...
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National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed on the country's National Register of Historic Places are recognized as National Historic Landmarks. A National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed. Creation of the program Prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. In 1935, Congress passed the Historic Sites Act, which authorized the Interior Secretary authority to formally record and organize historic properties, and to designate properties as having "national historical significance", and gave the Na ...
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