changing cultures and climate in the arctic

AnthroNotes Volume 30 No. 2

Fall

2009

CHANGING CULTURES AND CLIMATE IN THE ARCTIC:

PREHISTORY TO MODERN TIMES

by William W. Fitzhugh

[Editor's

Note:

Thisarticleisbased

on

the author'swebinar presentationforthe"Smithsonian

Online Education Con-

ference:

Climate Change," which took

place

September 29-October

1,

2009. To view

thefullpresentation,

with

over

80

illustrations,

go

to theconferencesite at http://

www.smithsonianconference.org/climate/]

Arctic

^regions

^have

^inspired

^our

imagination since theVikings returned

from Greenland

with narwhal .tusks,

and romantic

painters

drew

ships

dwarfed by

towering icebergs.

Martin

Frobisher,

one of

the first

Europeans

to explore the Arctic, searched for a routeto

Cathay

(China)throughArctic

North America

inthe1570s

and produced

thefirstdescriptionsofthe Inuit(Eskimos).

He

returnedto

England with

acargooffools gold,while the small cottage

he

builtinBaffin Islandquicklyturnedto rubble.

When

Iexploredthesiteinthe 1990s,

nothing

re-

mained

butbits

of mortar and

worthless ore.

One

reasonforFrobisher'sfailure

was

timing. Five

hundred

yearsearlier

—

^liketoday!

— ^he

^{couldhavesailed}

right

through

the

Northwest

Passage.

But he was

sailing

during

the LittleIceAge'sbeginnings,

one

ofthe coldest periodsinthe

Northern Hemisphere

inthelast10,000years.

That same

cold climate also led to the

Viking

colonies' extinctionin

Greenland and

the

southward

advance ofInuit (Eskimos).

Itturnsoutthatthe Arctic^is

one of

the

most

sen- sitive

environments on

earth

—

^{allbecauseofwater'sfreez-}

ingpoint.

Drop

thetemperature

below 32

degrees

F and

millionsof squaremiles

of

theearth'ssurfaceturns to

snow

or ice;

warm

it a

few

degrees

and much of

the

world

turns to

bog

orwater.

No

otherplace

on

earthhasa

tem-

peratureswitch

with such

massiveconsequences.Despite

this,Arcticplants,animals,

and

people haveadaptedasthe

world changed from

glaciers to grass,

from pack

ice to

open

ocean.

Today

climatechangeisbringing us

an

Arctic

world we

have neverseen before.

Temperatures

are

much warmer

than just

20

years ago.

But

itturnsoutthat theArctic's

temperature switchhas

been

off

and on

again

many

times inthepast.

In

2007

I helped lead a

two-week Smithsonian

Journeystripexploringglobal

warming

inthe Arctic.

We

had

climatescientists,reporters,paleontologists,economists,

and

1

00

guests

on board

aRussianice-breaker thattookus north

of

BeringStraitto

Wrangel

Island, anearmythical place

100

miles offtheSiberiancoast.

Many

earlyexplor- ers lost their lives

and

theirshipstrying toreach

Wrangel,

evenduring

summer.

Our

July

2007 voyage was

different

— ^no

^ice,only

a couple

of

polar bears,

and

plenty

of musk-ox,

walrus,

and

whales.

The

Arctic seaiceretreated farthernorth than everrecorded before.

En

route

we

heard

from

nativeSi- berians that Pacificsharks

and

killerwhales

had

appeared,

and

thatpolar bears

were wandering around

the Siberian

mainland

stalking reindeer.

"We've

not seen thesethings before,"

one of them

reported.

As an

archaeologist ^I

am

^{usedto lookingdeeper}

intothe pastthan people's

memories —

^oreven recorded history.

Archaeology

givesus a

way

to studyhistory

hun-

Thewalrus' habitat is melting under

them

as the Arctic ice cover shrinks.

dreds, thousands,

and

even millions

of

years ago.

Our

studies

show

that climate

change

has

been

a constant

companion of

Arctic life for

thousands of

years.

The

questions

we

ask include:

•

How

hasthe Arctic

changed

over

both

long

and

shorterperiods

of

time?

•

How

has climate

change

influenced Arctic

and world

history?

•

What

can

we

learn

from

Arctic history tohelpusinthe future?

The Arctic Climate Cycle

The

Arcticclimatecyclecan be broadly explained

by

a relativelysimple "albedo

model." Cooling

climatepro- duces

more

seaice

and

snow,

expanding

the ice-covered portion

of

theearth.Since

snow and

iceare white,they reflect

more

solar energy

back

into space, multiplying theoriginalcoolingin aprocesscalledclimate'feed-back.'

As

the

North

cools, polar currents export

more

cold water

and

iceintosouthernwaters,coolingtheSubarctic

and Temperate

coastalzones. Inplaceslike

Labrador on North Americas

East Coast, the extension

of

the La- brador

Current

brings Arctic

pack

icefarthersouth,

and

withit

comes

seals,walruses,polarbears,

and

other north- ern animals.

Growing

seasons

become

shorter; thenorth- ern forestlimit

moves

south

and

temperatespecies like deer

and moose

arereplaced

by

caribou

and

seals. In

an

IceAge, continentalicesheets

and

Arcticconditionsad-

vance deep

intothetemperate zones of

Canada and

the northern

United

States.

Warming

climateshavetheoppositeresult.

As

landice,snow,

and ocean pack

icemelt, thedarkersur- facesof land

and

waterthat are

uncovered

absorbsolar energy,multiplyingthe

warming

effect. Glaciers,winter

snow

cover,

and

forest

and animal

boundaries

move

north

and

the Arcticrealmgets smaller.

Of

coursepeople

and

cultures

adapted

tothetundra

and

northernseasor to the

warmer

forestzonesreact in similar fashion.

We

would

expect Arctic peoples to

expand

south

during

cooling phases

and

retreat north again

during warm

phases. Forestpeople

would

react intheopposite

man-

ner,

moving

northastheforest

boundary moves

north,

and

retreating

when

iceretreats

southward

incoolperi-

SUM SUN

Surfacewithoutsnowor iceabsorbsmoreheat

Surface withsnowand

icereflectsmoreheat

Albedo processesforArctic

summer

and winter.

ods.Inreality,thisnorthernclimate-culture interaction

model

isnot quite sosimple because

warming and

cooling phases varyin intensity,duration,

and

even

by

region.

The Siberian

Paleolithic

and Mesolithic

During

thefirst2.3 millionyears

of human

history,cycles

of

coldglacialperiodsalternatedwith

warmer

interglacials like the

warm

period

we

have

been

inforthe past

10,000

years.

Geologicallythe icyperiodis

known

^asthe Pleistocene. Ice covered

Europe and North

America,

pushing

animals

— ^and

people

— thousands of

miles south

of

the northern limits they

had

reached

during

the

warm

periods.Inspite

of

these cold periods, culture

and

artflourished along theglaciers' southern margins.

Cold

isnotnecessarily'bad'

—

^onlyif

^you

do

not

know how

todeal

with

it.

When

the present

Holocene

interglacial started, Eurasia

warmed

quickly, especially inSiberia

where

there

were no

icesheets.

Melting

glacierscaused oceans toriseto near theirpresentlevels

between 12,000-8,000

years ago.

At

the

end of

thisperiod

—

^atimethat

^{was warmer}

^{thanithasever}

beensince

—

^{peoplesettled}

^on

^tiny

^Zhokhov

^Island,

³⁰⁰

^miles

north

of

the Siberian coast. For

many

years they lived in driftwood houseseatingcaribou

and

polarbears.

However,

as sealevels

continued

to rise,people eventually

had

to re- treat farto thesouth.

When

^thesealevel

was

lower,

500

mileseast,

Wrangel

Island, like

Zhokhov

Island,

was

also part

of

the Siberian

Page

14

AnthroNotes Volume 30 No. 2

Fall

2009

mainland. Recently Russianscientists

found mammoth

^re-

mains on Wrangel

Island.

These

tundra-dwellingIce

Age

elephants

were

nearly thesize

of modern

elephants.In ad- dition tolarge

mammoths,

scientists

found bones

of

much

smaller

mammoths. Most of

the largeanimalsdated 10-

20,000

yearsold,

but

thesmall

mammoths —

^barelytaller

thana large

dog — ^were

^only

⁵⁰⁰⁰

^{years old.}

^Soon

^after

that,they

became

extinct,outlastingallother

mammoths on

earth

by 5000

years. Paleontologists believe that the

Wrangel

Island

mammoths grew

progressively smalleraf- terthe sealevelrose

and

isolated

Wrangel from

the

main-

land.

Humans

arrived

on Wrangel about

the

same

time, raising

an

interestingquestion:

What

finallykilledoff the

Wrangel mammoths —

^climate,or

^{humans? We}

^stilldon't

know!

Paleoindians Arrive

in

America

At

the

end

ofthe Pleistocene, 12,000yearsago,thenorth- ern

hemisphere warmed

rapidly.Icesheetsmelted,vegeta- tion zones

moved

north,

and

sea levels rose.

These

cli-

mate-relatedchanges coincidedwiththefirstpeoplearriv- ingin

America. Migrating

acrosstheland bridge

between

Siberia

and

Alaska, or

—

equally possible

—

^{travelingover}

theice, or

voyaging by

boat, these earlySiberians spread south alongthe Pacific coastor

through an

inlandice-free corridor inwestern

Canada. The

earliestidentifiablecul- ture in

North America

iscalledClovis, afterthearchaeo- logicalsitethat

produced

thefirstdistinctiveflutedspear pointthat defines these people's culture.

Within

1

000

years Clovis people

had

spread

throughout North and South America,

creatingthe

foundation

forall laterculturesof the

New World,

exceptinthe Arctic.

Excavations at 8,000 yearold

Zhokhov

^Island site in the Siberian Arctic. Photo courtesyWilliam Fitzhugh.

Paleoeskimos Arrive and Spread

About 5000

yearsagoa different Siberian

group

looking

more Mongoloid than

their Paleoindian predecessors reachedBeringStrait.

Their

^cultureincluded use

of

tiny blades

and

delicately

chipped arrow

points.

They

alsoused a simple type

of

claypottery

and burned

seal oilin their lamps.

By 5000

yearsagothisSiberian 'Neolithic' culture

had become

established in western Alaska.

These

early Paleoeskimos

had

learned

how

toinhabit thetree-lessArc-

tic

tundra

along the coast

of

ArcticAlaska north

of

the forestboundary.

During

a

warming

trend

between 4500-4000

years ago, Paleoeskimos spreadintothepreviously

unoccupied North American

Arctic.

Within

a

few hundred

yearsthey

had

settledall

of

northern

Canada,

the entire

Greenland

coast,

and

northern Labrador,livinginsmalltents,

hunting

caribou,

musk-ox, and

seals

with

spears

and

simple har- poons.

These

earlyPaleoeskimos

were more accustomed

to

hunting on

landthanatsea

and

heatedtheirtents

and food with

driftwood or

animal

bones.

When

Paleoeskimos reached

Labrador

they

found

they

were no

longer the only people there.

The

early Holocene's

warm

climate

had brought

forests to Labra- dor,alongwith

Maritime

ArchaicIndians,thedescendants

of

northeastern Paleoindians.Afterthe disappearance

of

mammoths and

other Ice

Age game,

Paleoindians

had become

adept hunters

of

seals, swordfish, walruses,

and

smallwhales alongthenortheasterncoasts

from Maine

to Labrador.For

5000

yearstheirculturethrived

and

in

some

respects

resembled

the

maritime

Indians

of

Alaska

and

British

Columbia.

Large

longhouse

sites, burial

mounds and

cemeteriesfilled

with

exoticgrave

goods

reveal a rich

and complex

maritimeculturewithtradeconnections

from Maine

toLabrador.

But

the

Maritime

Archaicculture

was

forest-based

and

even its

maritime hunting depended on wooden

or birchbarkboats,notthe skin-coveredkayaksused

by

Arctic peoples.Instead

of sea-mammal

oil

lamps

theyused

open

wood

^fires.

By 3500

years ago,

when

climatesturned cold

and

thetreeline

began

torecedesouth,

Maritime

Archaic people faced stormier seas, longerwinters,

more

Arctic

pack

ice,

and

shorter

and

cooler

summers —

^aswellas

^some-

thingelse they

had

never

encountered

before

—

^Eskimos,

orInuitastheyare calledtoday.

AnthroNotes Volume 30 No. 2

Fall

2009

The same

conditionsthat

made

life

more

difficult for

Maritime Archaic

Indians

were advantageous

for Paleoeskimos.

As

climatecooledduringthenext

2000

years,

Maritime

Archaic Indians

withdrew

tothe south, closely followed

by

Paleoeskimos

who advanced

into the

former

Indian territories inLabrador,

Newfoundland, and

even the

Gulf of

St.

Lawrence. This

early

Eskimo advance

reachedits

southernmost

limitinthe

Gulf

duringthecold period

between 500 BC

to 1

A.D.

Humanity Goes Global

Our

final

examples of

Arcticclimate impacts

come from

thelast

1000

years

and

the

meeting of two

cultures

— ^Eu-

ropeans

and

Inuit

—

ⁱⁿnortheastern

North

America.Itturns out that their arrivals

had

everythingto

do with

climate

change —

in this case, a

warming

climate.

The

first

Europe-

ansto reach

North America —

^theVikings

— ^and

^theiren-

countertherewiththe Inuitcanalsobe

viewed

asthelast

chapterinhumanity'sgreatmigrationout ofAfrica,inop- positedirections,

around

theearth,creatingthe globalcul- tural

world we know

^today.

The World Warms: Vikings and

Inuit

The Danish and Norwegian

Vikings

who began moving

westacrossthe

North

Atlanticabout

AD. 800

were spurred

by warming

climate

and

superbships.

Within 200

years Vikings

had

colonized Shetland Islands, the Faeros, Ice- land,

and

eventuallyGreenland,

which

Erikthe

Red

^settled

in985.

By 1000

LeifEriksson

and

other

Greenland and

Icelandic

Norse had

reached

Newfoundland and

the

Gulf of

St.

Lawrence, where

they established a

colony

in

"Vinland."Inthe 1960s "Vinland"

was

discoveredinnorth- ern

Newfoundland

at asite called

LAnse aux Meadows.

Itsthreesod houses

and

shops

conform

to the

Viking

saga accounts

and

date exactly to

A.D.

1000.

But

the

Norse soon abandoned

thissite

and

the

Vinland

regionprobably

due

to Indian

and Eskimo

attacks

and

the high cost

of

maintaininga

colony

sofar

from Greenland and

Iceland.

Neverthelessa

Norwegian penny

datingto

1085 found

in

an

Indiansite

on

the

Maine

coast

shows

that

Greenland

or Iceland

Norse

continuedtovoyageto the

American main-

land,obtainingtimberforbuildingboats.

Thule (Eskimo) carving of a

Norseman

seenin

Hudson

Straitca.A.D.1300.

CourtesyCanadian

Museum

of Civilization.

Norse

expansion to

North America was

facili- tated

by

the

Medieval Warm

Period

of A.D. 800-1300

indicated

by

advancing northernforests,melting Alpinegla- ciers,seaicereduction,

and

increased grain

and

grapehar- vests inEurope.

Warming made Viking

voyagessafer

and Viking

farms

more

productive,

and commerce with Eu-

ropeflourished.Greenland'sproducts includedwool,tex- tiles, walrus ivory, aswell as elite items like falcons

and

narwhal(i.e."unicorn")tusks.

At

itspeakinthe1200s,

Norse Greenland was

a thriving

European

colony of

5000

people with

many

Christianchurches

and

its

own

Catholicbishop.

However, soon

afterthe Inuit

became

established intheEasternArctic,

around A.D.

¹200,theweather turned colder;

by

1

500

theregion

had

enteredaphase

known

as the LittleIceAge.

European

historicalrecords note crop failures,

poor

harvests,

and

increasing

North

Atlantic ice that

endangered

shipping. InGreenland,the

Norse

colo- nies

began

to suffer as theiranimals declined

and

seaice

and

stormsrestricted

European

contact.

By 1350

the

Norse Western

Settlement

was abandoned;

intheearly

1400s

the largerEasternSettlementdisappeared.

By 1450

Inuitgroups

were

advancingsouth,occupying former

Norse

lands, thriv- ing thereassea

mammal

hunters

and

fishermen

where

the agricultural

Norse had

starved.Climatesthat

once

favored the

Norse now

required

an

entirelydifferent

way of

life,

one

offishing

and

hunting,

which

the

now

Christian

Norse

considered a barbarian

way of

life.

By 1600

the Inuit

were

raiding the

European

whaling

and

fishing stations in

Newfoundland and

the

Gulf of

St.

Lawrence. But

the story

of

theseArctic people, the

southernmost

Inuit intheworld,didnot

end

happily.His- toricalreportsindicate thatthe Inuit

who moved

here dur- ing the cool 1

7* and

early1 ^thcenturies

were

killedordriven

back

north

by

Indiansallied

with French and

Englishset- tlers.

By

the

mid-

1700sallInuit

had

disappeared

from

south- ern

Labrador and Quebec and were

located

where

they

Page 16

AnthroNotes Volume 30 No. 2

Fall

2009

livetoday,

hundreds of

miles to the

north

in central

and

northern Labrador.

This

lastchapterin

our

storyillustratesthe

com-

plexity

of

interpretingculture history

from any

singlepoint

of

view.Yes, Inuit

movements

^into southern Greenland, Labrador,

and

the

Gulf of

St.

Lawrence were

facilitated

by

theexpansion

of

Arctic

pack

ice

and marine mammals during

the ^Little Ice Age.

The

expansion

of

the Arctic

marine

niche

provided

migration incentive for a people already

adapted

to these conditions.

Yet otherfactors

must

have

been

involved

—

^ini-

tiallyadesire toobtainpractical

European

objectslikesturdy

wood

boats

and

iron,

but

later, items

of

socialvaluelike glassbeads,textiles,

and

ceramics, things Inuitcouldlive without,

but

neverthelessdesperatelywanted.

Untangling

thevariousfactorsinadditionto

environment and

subsis- tencerequiresconsiderationofsuchinfluencesastechnol-

ogy

transfer, religiousconversion, culture contact,prestige,

and

inter-groupmarrying.

THIS

is

what makes

archaeol-

ogy

so fascinating

and complex,

but ultimatelytheonly

way

to

understand

the prehistoricpast.

Archaeology

for

the Future?

Arcticarchaeologydemonstratesthat today's changesare partly aresult

of

natural climatic cycles that the earth has

undergone

foreons, often

having

great

impact on human

cultures.

Some

peoples

have

prospered whileothershave disappeared. Forthenorthernarchaeologist today,

one of

the

most

severe

problems

is the loss

of

sites to coastal erosion as a result

of

rising sea levels.

However,

this is

nothing compared

to thefar

more

serious societalprob-

lem

of

whole

villagesbeingeroded

by

therisingsea. Today, technology provides

some

toolsto

combat

^these threats, butthefirstorderofbusinessistoreducethe

human com- ponent

inglobal

warming.

The human and environmental

impacts

of

the

changing

Arctic

were

exploredina

2007

exhibitionatthe Smithsonian'sNational

Museum of

NaturalHistorycalled Arctic:

A

FriendActingStrangely. Thisexhibitcan be viewed

on

the

web

at(wwvy.forces.si.edu/arctic)

Lessons

from

these northern studies

show

that:

(1)

Change

isinevitable

—

^but

^we

^{caninfluenceits}

^outcome;

(2)Listen toelders; (3)

Adapt,

because

we probably

can't _Saami (Lapp) reindeer-herderreiaxes with

new

transport forcethesystem; (4)

Understand

the science, becauseit's vehicle. Photo courtesy Bryan and Cherry Alexander.

more important

thanever before; (5)

Learn

lessons

from

thepast.

One

lesson

from Norse Greenland

is the

danger of

over-exploiting resources.

What may work

in 'good times'

may

failcatastrophically

when

theclimate turns the otherway,

and

finally, (6)

Don't make

things

worse —

^na-

tureprovideschallenge

enough.

References

Diamond,Jared.2005.Collapse:

How

SocietiesChooseto Failor Suc- ceed.VikingPress.

Fitzhugh,William

W.

2008.Arcticand CircumpolarRegions. In Deborah

M.

Pearsall, ed., Encyclopedia

of

Archaeology,_pp.

247-271.AcademicPress/Elsevier.

Fitzhugh,William

W.

2002.YamaltoGreenland:GlobalConnec-

tions inCircumpolarArchaeology. InBarryCunliffe,

Wendy

Davies, andColinRenfrew,eds.,Archaeology: theWideningDebate, pp. 9^1-

144.OxfordUniversityPress.

Fitzhugh,William

W,

andElizabethWard,eds.2000. Vikings: the NorthAtlantic Saga. SmithsonianInstitutionPress.

Hoffecker,lohn

F

2005.

A

PrehistoryoftheNorth:

Human

Settle-

ment

oftheHigherLatitudes.Rutgers UniversityPress.

McGhee,Robert.2007.TheLastImaginaryPlace:

A Human

History oftheArcticWorld.UniversityofChicagoPress.

William

W.

FitzhughistheDirector

of

theArcticStudies Center,

Departmentof

Anthropology, National

Museum

ofNatural His- tory.