Stopp, Marianne P.

English

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110 • REVIEWSTOWARDS AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE NAIN REGION, LABRADOR. By BRYAN C. HOOD. Edited by WILLIAM W. FITZHUGH. Washington, D.C.: Arctic Stud-ies Center, National Museum of Natural History, Smith-sonian Institution, 2008. Contributions to Circumpolar Anthropology 7. ISBN 978-0-9816142-0-5. 366 p., maps, b&w illus., references, index. Softbound. US$34.95.Bryan Hood has worked throughout the circumpolar region for more than 30 years—in northern Labrador, northern Norway and Russia, Greenland, and Baffin Island. This vol-ume presents the results of conceptual and physical revisits to early haunts in Nain, Labrador. The social structuration of space is the theoretical thread that holds together this “quilt of many coloured pieces,” as Hood describes his work (p. 347). Old and new archaeological data are brought together from several sites, with emphasis on Maritime Archaic and Pre-Dorset manifestations on Nukasusutok Island and Webb Bay/Port Manvers Run. An intriguing elongated distribution of Archaic material (Nukasusutok-5) as well as more discrete Palaeoeskimo lithic and hearth dis-tributions (Nukasusutok-12), both on Nukasusutok Island, form the main body of analytical data.The bulk of the analysis is based on the collection of coordinates for large numbers of flakes, artifacts, structural lithics, debris, and features, and consists of spatial analysis a good impression of what must have been an exhilarat-ing period of Moss’s life. A year following his arrival in Esquimalt, Moss traveled to San Francisco, where he met and married his fiancée Thomasina, who had traveled by rail from New York across the recently expanded United States. British Columbia was itself a very young province, having joined Canada only a year earlier. In the Northwest, border disputes between the United States and Canada had been ongoing for some time, interrupted only by the Ameri-can Civil War. Arguments over sovereignty of the San Juan Islands nearly resulted in open conflict. Surprisingly, Apple-ton refers only briefly to this incident, which saw American and British forces facing each other over an argument about compensation for a dead pig. Resolution of the conflict was achieved in 1860, without any shots fired. Small British and U.S. military forces co-existed peacefully on the island until 1872, when a commission, appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, decided in favour of the United States claim. The British soldiers were transferred to Victoria, where Dr. Moss looked after them at the base in Esquimalt.In December 1874, Moss was offered a position with the British 1875 Arctic Expedition under Captain George Nares. With his wife and baby daughter, Moss returned to Eng-land and reported for duty in April 1875. He was assigned to HMS Alert under Captain Nares. For the reader with a primary interest in Arctic exploration, Chapters 11 to 16 represent an interesting perspective of the Nares Expedi-tion, particularly with reference to the surprising speed with which members of the spring sledging parties were stricken by scurvy. Moss, who headed one of the support parties as far as Cape Joseph Henry, had to bring two men back to the ship as they were already suffering from unusual signs of fatigue and exhaustion. Scurvy brought death and misery to a great number of the men assigned to the three sledg-ing parties. These were led by Albert Hastings Markham (attempting at least a farthest north), Pelham Aldrich (head-ing as far west as he could along the north shores of Elles-mere Island), and Lewis Beaumont, from HMS Discovery wintering south of HMS Alert, whose party was instructed to explore the northern coast of Greenland. The exten-sive documentation of the 1875 Arctic Expedition includes Moss’s own excellent account (1878) and Nares’s 1878 pub-lication. Suffice it here to say that Appleton’s treatment of this episode of Moss’s life is well executed and an interest-ing addendum to Moss’s own publication.The final chapters of the book and of Moss’s life leave the reader with a sense that the Esquimalt and Arctic postings presented two of the more exciting episodes in his life. In the early fall of 1878, Moss was ordered to serve on a small bat-tleship, HMS Research, which was part of the British Medi-terranean Fleet based in Beshika Bay, Turkey. The highlight of this episode seems to have been Moss’s encounter and association with Heinrich Schliemann, who was excavating at Hisarlik, a site he claimed was the ancient city of Troy. Moss’s interest in Schliemann’s work and theories soon had to give way to his own next assignment as doctor onboard the training ship HMS Atalanta. Moss’s last letter, addressed to his brother, was written in Bermuda on 29 January 1880. There had been several cases of malignant yellow fever on board, and the ship was heading back to England. The ship and all hands were lost at sea. Moss was 36 years old. The book is well written and amply illustrated with Moss’s sketches and paintings. Although Moss was clearly a talented artist, the reader is left entirely uninformed about his artistic contributions, and no mention is made of his interest, training, or experience in sketching and painting. Overall, the book provides the reader with a good picture of British Naval life and yet another glimpse into the torturous practice of man-hauling heavily loaded sledges during Brit-ish Arctic expeditions. REFERENCESMcCullough, K., and Schledermann, P. 1999. Mystery cairns on Washington Irving Island. Polar Record 35(195):289–298.Moss, E.L. 1878. Shores of the Polar Sea: A narrative of the Arctic Expedition of 1875. Belfast: Marcus Ward.Nares, G.S. 1878. Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875–76 in HM ships ‘Alert’ and ‘Discovery.’ 2 Vols. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington. Peter Schledermann320 Silvercreek Green NWCalgary, Alberta T3B 4J8, Canadaschleder@ucalgary.caREVIEWS • 111through k-means clustering, contingency tables, multivari-ate correspondence, and some use of size-sorting. Pattern recognition is central to the discussions of social space for Maritime Archaic and Palaeoeskimo camps and of contact between these groups. Relatively detailed and layered mate-rial culture analyses include an examination of raw material technologies for quartz, Ramah chert, fine-grained cherts, and slates. Of interest is the consideration that site analysis, at least in Labrador, may benefit more from close study of non-traditional elements, such as variation in lithic reduc-tion systems of different raw material types, than from the traditional approach of tool typologies. Much-needed com-parative material is generated in this effort, while theoreti-cal and methodological discussions offer potential templates for future archaeological studies in Labrador and elsewhere. To follow the substantial microanalysis and some techni-cal and theoretical jargon, the reader must give the text a close reading from the outset—but consuming it at a single sitting may be wearying. Detail on this scale is, however, necessary if one intends to influence methodologies, intro-duce discourse and data for future studies, and perhaps shift existing explanatory models. Especially relevant to students of Labrador archaeology is the methodical dissection of two long-standing explanatory paradigms, namely the “longhouse” structure as a represent-ative late Maritime Archaic dwelling and the archaeologi-cal ramifications of identifying culture contact, in this case between Maritime Archaic Indians and Palaeoeskimos in northern Labrador. The “longhouse model” has provided the framework for interpreting elongated, or linear, distributions of cultural material from the late Maritime Archaic in northern Labra-dor. Longhouses are considered the culmination of an evo-lutionary development from early single-family pit-houses observed on upper or older beach levels. The type site is a 28 m segmented structure recorded in 1980 in the lowest or most recent cobble beach levels at the site of Aillik. Hood’s spatial analysis is illuminating and suggests that the studied “longhouse” distribution at Nukasusutok-5 may in fact rep-resent two separate cultural nodes, perhaps further obscured by re-use patterning. This result has implications for other seemingly linear distributions in northern Labrador, which to date have no counterparts along the southern Labrador coast.The Maritime Archaic-Pre-Dorset “boundary problem” is examined through a series of short reports on small-scale excavations in the Webb Bay-Port Manvers Run area. The author pursues various lines of data in considering the evidence for contact, examining the extent of radiocarbon date overlap, the potential for resource competition indi-cated by site distribution, and palaeoenvironmental context during the period from 4000 to 3500 BP. Two theoretical approaches are also played out in this final section of the volume, namely ecological and ideological entry points for analyzing site distribution and subsequent late Archaic and Pre-Dorset contact. Hood’s discussion confirms the need for more critical consideration of how archaeological data signify contact phenomena. Although Maritime Archaic and Pre-Dorset shared the north-central coast for several hundred years, preliminary interpretations point to spa-tial partitioning, and good evidence for contact “is thin” (p. 334). Radiocarbon dates, presumably the strongest type of evidence for considering contact, are in this case not alto-gether convincing because of their broad probability ranges. Moreover, intriguing incidental finds such as a “diagnostic” Archaic incised sandstone plummet found at the Pre-Dorset site of Nuasornak-2 suggest more questions than they can answer (p. 337). In the examination of Palaeoeskimo patterning and social space, spatial and artifactual analyses of axial features at Nukasusutok-12 lead into discussion of this feature type’s function in and representation of the Dorset world. Care-fully considered are patterns in tool types and raw materials on either side of and within the axial features, and whether these patterns are indicative of joint family composition, gender differences, or symbolic organization.Archaeological data from Labrador sites are rich and varied not only because this vast region has been inhab-ited for many millennia, but also because its archaeological material remains relatively intact compared to that in many other parts of the world. The coastline has risen, thereby protecting sites from shoreline erosion; soil development since the last glaciation has been insubstantial; and impacts from modern development are minimal. Labrador’s coastal sites offer tremendous possibilities for investigating adap-tation and culture change; they constitute a palimpsest of early human presence that is rare and valuable even at an international scale. Hood’s work raises the bar for situating Labrador archaeology within relevant theoretical discussion and for the quality of field data collection. William Fitzhugh and the Arctic Studies Center have produced a polished text complete with comprehensive index, crisp schematic fig-ures, and black-and-white photographs of good clarity. Marianne P. StoppWakefield, Quebec, Canadamarianne.stopp@sympatico.ca 

Towards an Archaeology of the Nain Region, Labrador, by Bryan C. Hood

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Towards an Archaeology of the Nain Region, Labrador, by Bryan C. Hood

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