Comer's Midden

Comer's Midden
Created Thule culture
Discovered 1916
Present location Near Pituffik, Greenland
Comer's Midden
Location within Greenland

Comer's Midden was a 1916 archaeological excavation site near Thule (modern Qaanaaq), north of Mt. Dundas in North Star Bay in northern Greenland.[1][2][3] It is the find after which the Thule culture was named.[4] The site was first excavated in 1916 by whaling Captain George Comer, ice master of the Crocker Land Expedition's relief team, and of members of Knud Rasmussen's Second Danish Thule Expedition who were in the area charting the North Greenland coast.[5][6]

Excavation phases

1916

With his ship ice-bound, Comer made use of his time through an archaeological excavation just south of Arctic Station of Thule unearthing, amongst other things, a kitchen-midden made by paleo-Eskimos.[3] The site is named in honor of Comer and the midden that he found.[7][8][9]

1920s

Anthropologist Therkel Mathiassen accompanied Rasmussen's 5th Thule Expedition (1921–1924) that included a return to the Thule site. In Mathiasen's monumental[10] works of the 1920s and 1930s, he described Comer's Midden as "the only substantial find of pure Thule culture in Greenland".[11]

1930s and 1940s

The site was excavated by Erik Holtved in 1935 to 1937, and again in 1946 to 1947.[12][13]

Archaeological finds

Thule Greenlanders whaling, drawing by Hans Egede, 18th century
Habitation periods

The site shows signs of having been inhabited from the 14th to the 20th century although Holtved reports that the 17th and 18th centuries are poorly represented.[14]

Ruins

The site contains about 26 house ruins and several middens distributed over an area of about 120 metres (390 ft) in width and stretching over 400 metres (1,300 ft) inland with the midden which Comer excavated located at its south end.[15] The majority of the houses were more or less rounded, typically around 3 to 5 metres (9.8 to 16.4 ft) across and most likely residential. One house was rectangular 4.5 by 6 metres (15 by 20 ft), with narrow platforms along two of the walls, was probably a "qassi" or "men's house" and was probably used as a workshop and for social gatherings.[16][17]

Artifacts

Subsequent to the initial finds, additional artifacts pertain to the Dorset culture,[18][19] as well as items of Norse origin.[20]

The vast majority of harpoon heads found are of the open socket type typical of the Thule culture.

Re-settlement

Thule Air Base with Saunders Island in the background, 2005

In 1910, Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen established a private trading post as Cape York and a settlement area named Uummannaq was established near it by local Inuit,[3] although it was known as Dundas in English. In 1953, Dundas and nearby Pituffik were converted into Thule Air Force Base and their residents relocated to Qaanaaq.

Notes

  1. ↑ Thalbitzer, 1934
  2. ↑ Dick, 2001
  3. 1 2 3 Thule Forum, 2006
  4. ↑ Birket-Smith, p. 548.
  5. ↑ Wissler, p. 111.
  6. ↑ Rasmussen, p. 117.
  7. ↑ Ross, 1984
  8. ↑ "With the aid of Captain Comer, of the Crocker Land Expedition, a large kitchen-midden was dug out in Umanaq". Retrieved 2008-03-31.
  9. ↑ "In the Cape York district the find from Comer's Midden is the datum.". Retrieved 2008-03-31.
  10. ↑ Meldgaard, p. 9.
  11. ↑ Mathiassen, p. 409.
  12. ↑ Holtved (1944), vol. I, p. 8.
  13. ↑ Holtved (1954), p. 5.
  14. ↑ Holtved (1944) vol. II, p. 179.
  15. ↑ Holtved (1944), vol. I, pp. 110–12.
  16. ↑ Holtved (1944), vol. I, pp. 128–30.
  17. ↑ Gulløv, pp. 288–90.
  18. ↑ Holtved (1944), vol. II, p. 10.
  19. ↑ Holtved (1954), pp. 107–13.
  20. ↑ Holtved (1944), vol. II, p. 26.

References

Coordinates: 76°34′N 68°50′W / 76.567°N 68.833°W / 76.567; -68.833

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