Therkel Mathiassen (5 September 1892, in
Favrbo,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establish ...
– 14 March 1967) was an archaeologist, anthropologist, cartographer, and ethnographer notable for his scientific study of the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
.
Mathiassen and
Peter Freuchen took part in the Fifth Danish Thule Expedition led by
Knud Rasmussen
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic–Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studie ...
. During his travels, Mathiassen gave out
thimble
A thimble is a small pitted cup worn on the finger that protects it from being pricked or poked by a needle while sewing. The Old English word , the ancestor of thimble, is derived from Old English , the ancestor of the English word ''thumb''.
...
s to local
Inuit
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 ...
, thus earning the
Inuktitut nickname, ''Tikkilik'' ("the one with the thimbles"). In 1922, Mathiassen began an archaeological investigation at a site he called "Naujan" (
Naujaat
Naujaat ( iu, ᓇᐅᔮᑦ, lit=seagulls' nesting place), known until 2 July 2015 as Repulse Bay, is an Inuit hamlet situated on the Arctic Circle. It is located on the shores of Hudson Bay, at the south end of the Melville Peninsula, in the ...
); the first archaeological excavation in
Canada's Arctic.
[Folger, 2006] This was also the second ever
Thule culture
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 o ...
archaeological excavation, following the 1916
Comer's Midden
Comer's Midden was a 1916 archaeological excavation site near Thule (modern Qaanaaq), north of Mt. Dundas in North Star Bay in northern Greenland.Thule Forum, 2006 It is the find after which the Thule culture was named. The site was first excavat ...
in North Greenland. Mathiassen was able to manually excavate through peat, sod, and gravel, portions of 12
sod houses and a
kitchen-midden.
In 1929, Mathiassen worked on another midden archaeological excavation, and uncovered
a Norse culture in
Inugsuk, Greenland.
Frederica de Laguna
Frederica ("Freddy") Annis Lopez de Leo de Laguna (October 3, 1906 – October 6, 2004) was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and archaeologist influential for her work on Paleoindian and Alaska Native art and archaeology in the Americ ...
was his research assistant.
Mathiassen was a member of the initial Danish committee of ''Societas Arctica Scandinavica'', dedicated to Scandinavian research in Arctic humanistic and natural sciences. He was a prolific author of works, which have later been described as monumental and as marking the beginning of the professional period in Arctic archaeology.
[Meldgaard, 1996, p. 9] His works of the 1920s and 1930s introduced the concept of the Thule culture but also dismissed the theory of a
Stone Age people in Greenland as first described on a scientific basis by
Ole Solberg in 1907.
In the 1950s, the existence of such a people was established through the use of
radiocarbon dating.
In 1932 he was awarded the
Hans Egede Medal by the
Royal Danish Geographical Society.
(in Danish)
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Partial bibliography
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Notes
References
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External links
Undated photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathiassen, Therkel
1892 births
1967 deaths
Danish archaeologists
Danish explorers
Danish cartographers
20th-century Danish writers
Explorers of the Arctic
Scandinavian explorers of North America
Explorers of Canada
Inuit history
20th-century archaeologists
20th-century cartographers