Join us for this Laboratory of Archaeology Talk with Kyle Forsythe (McGill University)
Thursday, Oct. 25, 10:30AM
Borden Research Room, Museum of Anthropology
Abstract:
Lithic artifacts have long been employed as key components in reconstructions of Tuniit (4800 – 600 BP) culture history in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. However, little of this work has considered the potential affective roles of lithic raw materials, and how their social importance may have emerged and changed as part of situated landscape practices. In this talk, I present preliminary doctoral research on excavated Tuniit artifacts and argue that engagement with Inuit oral histories can facilitate historically specific explorations of lithic value. While raw material selection varies between ancestral Inuit and Tuniit archaeological assemblages, Inuit maintain intimate knowledge of the Amittuq (northern Foxe Basin) landscape, including the stone resources used by Tuniit communities. This specialized body of knowledge presents a unique set of possibilities for archaeological research. Inuit testimonies can help us to better understand the unique capacities and potentials of lithic resources and the ways they may have acquired value as part of Tuniit communities. To this end, I discuss 1. the personal experiences in which these materials are considered by Inuit; 2. how the material properties of different stone types lend themselves to specific sets of practices; 3. how lithic materials may have acquired value as part of a wider topology of people and places.
Bio
Kyle Forsythe is the Curator of Archaeology at the Royal Alberta Museum and a doctoral candidate at McGill University. His doctoral research investigates the social value of lithic materials employed by Tuniit (Paleo-Inuit) communities in the eastern Canadian Arctic (4000-600 BP). The research draws on Inuit oral history to locate lithic sources and understand the historically contingent properties of different materials. He combines this approach with chemical sourcing and site-based analyses to assess small-scale differences in community procurement and production strategies during the Tuniit period.
