Samantha Walker is an anthropological archaeologist whose research focuses on the social production of place and landscape. She specialized in archaeology during her BA at the University of Toronto and completed her MA at Trent University on the emergence of Late Archaic and Middle Woodland cemeteries in the upper Great Lakes region. Her MA research involved paleoenvironmental modelling, multivariate spatial analysis, and oral historical research to interpret the social roles of mortuary traditions as part of broader settlement landscapes. Sam received her PhD in anthropology from McGill University in 2024, where she examined how Tuniit (Paleo-Inuit) communities were negotiated through dynamic relations with persistent settlement places, in the Arctic maritime region of Amittuq, NU. As part of this study, she developed an epistemology of Place that engages Inuit ways of knowing with Indigenous and posthumanist feminisms, and applied archaeological, oral historical, and palaeogeographical analyses to examine traces of the spatial structures of everyday life. This was a community-based project involving sites of living history, and involved collaborations with members of the Igloolik Oral History Project and Hunters and Trappers Organization, as well as the running of a local field school and youth archaeology camp.

Sam’s ongoing research, which includes the Amittuq Archaeological Project and the AERIAL Project, continues to explore the reciprocal, generative relationships between land and people, particularly during the Tuniit/Paleo-Inuit (c. 4500 – 600 BP) and Ancestral Inuit (c.800 – 500 BP) periods in Inuit Nunangat (homeland). She remains active developing educational youth programs in northern Canada.

I study how the social structures and identities of past people were constituted through placemaking activities of different durations, scales, and intensities. I specialize in remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) technologies, geospatial analyses, and community-based participatory research (CBPR), which I apply to research questions derived from social theories of temporality, historicity, materiality, agency, and performativity. More broadly, my work explores the inseparability of social and scientific information, and how relational knowledge frameworks — especially those informed by collaborative research with local communities — can permit more inclusive and historically contingent narratives of past landscapes. Much of this work takes places in Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland of the North American Arctic), but I am also involved in research projects in Ontario, and have previously conducted research in Jordan, Greece, and Vietnam.

I currently direct two projects. The Amittuq Archaeological Project builds on my doctoral research to explore how the archaeological sites of non-descendant Tuniit/Paleo-Inuit peoples continue to acquire meaning as valued components of Inuit cultural heritage. To this end, I work with Amitturmiut Knowledge Holders from the communities of Igloolik and Sanirajak to investigate Tuniit sites described in local oral histories that have yet to be recorded by archaeologists. This includes low density, unwalled occupational contexts that would be difficult to locate through archaeological survey alone, and that embody valuable dimensions of everyday social life. The project also examines evidence for Tuniit and ancestral Inuit interactions between the 12^th and 14^th centuries CE, contributing to ongoing debates on the “validity” of Inuit oral history for interpreting Tuniit lifeways.

My second project, AERIAL (Archaeological and Environmental Reconstructions of Interior Arctic Landscapes) is an integrative research initiative that investigates inland Tuniit and ancestral Inuit settlement contexts across the eastern Canadian Arctic. Interior landscapes in this region are rarely explored outside of sporadic CRM projects, and related aspects of past communities, including small-scale diversity in seasonal practices and organizational structures, have largely remained outside the scope of archaeological investigation. AERIAL combines exploratory analysis of satellite and drone-acquired imagery, predictive modelling, legacy CRM datasets, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (epistemology and knowledge), and multimethod archaeological survey to identify and compare underrepresented inland archaeological contexts.

Alongside my research, I run the Archaeology as Applied Learning Educational Program. Critical to the decolonization of anthropology is the improved representation of scholars from diverse backgrounds, both in cultural heritage work and higher education environments. However, systemic barriers in education and mentorship impact students in remote communities from an early age. I provide inquiry driven, hands-on programming for youth in the communities that I conduct my research. Planned programming for 2025 includes a two-week archaeology camp to be run in the communities of Igloolik and Sanirajak at three skill levels (grades 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8).