Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: The Evolution of Maritime Archaic Household in Northern Labrador

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Under the supervision of Drs. David Meltzer and Torben Rick, Christopher Wolff will analyze data gathered during his archaeological research at Maritime Archaic sites at White Point, located in northern Labrador just south of Saglek Bay. White Point contains evidence of Maritime Archaic activity dating from the time of appearance in the region, ca. 6000-6500 B.P., to their disappearance, ca. 3500 B.P. Throughout this time Maritime Archaic sites and assemblages became more socially and culturally complex, demonstrated in their increasingly elaborate mortuary deposits, specialized hunting technology, and a shift from small individual pithouses to large longhouses. This research will focus on these changing aspects of Maritime Archaic household organization by examining the architecture and spatial patterning of several small pithouses and longhouses from multiple time periods. An examination of these houses is important to understanding the structure and nature of Maritime Archaic society. It allows researchers to gain information about family structure and size, and how those families integrated into and reflected broader society. In an increasingly complex hunter-gatherer society like the Maritime Archaic, such an examination will help us understand the relationships between household structure and function and broader societal changes, including the reorganization of community residential patterning. For instance, did households organize the interiors of their residences differently as they began to live in larger groups? If so, did the new patterns reflect changes in social status, the division of labor, and/or the development of specialized activity areas. Or, alternatively, were they adaptations to environmental changes, such as climate, resources, or group interaction? It is probable that any developments were responses to multiple variables. If there were no significant changes in household or community organization beyond shifting from living in atomistic residential units to connected units that formed longhouses, then it may suggest that social complexity was limited to interhousehold cooperation for subsistence, ritual, and/or the sharing of information and mates, and did not extend to permanent social differentiation. This research will concentrate on assessing the relative influences that various cultural and environmental factors had on Maritime Archaic households and society in northern Labrador.This project will have a broader impact by providing data, through publications and presentations, that will enhance knowledge on the effects of increasing social and cultural complexity on hunter-gatherers at the household scale. Beyond the Maritime Archaic, this research will provide a comparative database with which to examine complexity in other regions, particularly where mortuary deposits and ethnohistoric accounts are unavailable to researchers. This research will also examine the relative influence that environmental conditions have on household and community organization, providing useful historical and comparative data for researchers and people who work and live in northern societies today and are dealing with significant changes in their environments. Finally, this project will work with regional groups by hiring local Inuit students and presenting its findings to nearby communities in northern Labrador to help inform them more about the history of their region.