Did a meteorite find drive the Inuit migration across Canada hundreds of years ago?
Nah, couldn’t be. Nothing that happens in space is relevant to what happens on earth.
For some reason, this reminds me of the global warming debate. Not to mention the difficulty that Alverez had in selling the dinosaur extinction theory.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is also an interesting example of how technology, or the desire for it, can influence human migration patterns. It may have some relevance to space policy…
This sort of thing fascinates me. Between it and the (proposed) Clovis strike, North American history could owe a lot to extraterrestrial interlopers. I’m probably not properly skeptical, though…
It also makes you wonder what effect, if any, it had on the destruction of the Norse Settlements in Greenland. They did disappear about the same time the Inuit arrived.
From the article:
“We may have been led astray by the deeply rooted archeological tendency to ascribe different sets of motives and different cultural processes to aboriginal peoples than we apply to Europeans or other societies with a written record of individual accomplishment,” McGhee concludes. “Future archeological work may indicate that ancestral Inuit may be more accurately viewed as an entrepreneurial people” driven by the same kinds of economic opportunities that prompted such explorers as Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and Jacques Cartier to sail for the New World centuries later.
Wow. They were humans just like us, and when given the opportunity, no different from anyone else of their time. Imagine that!
“Quest for Rust”
If it’s true, that must have been some trip.
Something doesn’t quite feel right about this hypothesis. Maybe I’m just ignorant. How pure are the nickel-iron meteorites? How exactly does one extract useful quantities of metal from them using non-metal tools? How large are the meteoric deposits relative to the ore that is spread throughout Canada? If the meteorite supply was significant enough to spur a migration, wouldn’t that have catapulted the Inuit from paleolithic into iron-age technology? The article mentions bone-working tools and arrowheads, but typical iron-age technology involves many more applications, everything from knives and plates to armor and decoration. Where are these artifacts?
I just have a hard time picturing a tribe spurred to migration by a material that is barely better than existing technology for the uses to which it was apparently put. I mean, come on… “Dude… iron arrowheads! How far do you want me to walk?”
BBB
bbbeard
From the article it sounded more like an expedition that was followed by a migration. What would be interesting is if there are any legends of it. It was only 750 years ago and must have inspired some stories.
@bbbeard that’s actually precisely the point. Had the Inuit been an Iron age tribe the Cape York meteorites would perhaps not have been such an attraction. Consider that use of meteoric Iron in pre or early Iron age peoples tends to be as much ceremonial and ornamental as it is practical (similarly, Napoleon III had a prized set of silverware made out of Aluminum, since it was more valuable than Gold at the time). Because of the rarity of meteoric iron its value in ancient societies was almost certainly considered to be extremely high. Looking at this event as a scramble for materials is perhaps less accurate than looking at it as a kind of Gold rush. Though there are many indications that the Thule did make great use of this material in fashioning practical implements.
Keep in mind that even elsewhere, such as in Egypt, creation of meteoric Iron implements preceded the Iron age proper by 2-3 millennia, so even assuming the Thule had been propelled on a course toward their own Iron age they may not have achieved it until perhaps the year 3000 or later.
bbbeard Says:
February 10th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
“How exactly does one extract useful quantities of metal from them using non-metal tools?”
The adventurer Robert Peary took the biggest of the Cape York meteorites from the Inuit people and it eventually ended up on display at the Musuem of Natural History
It appears they used basalt rocks to smash the meteorite until a piece would break off.
Robin says:
Keep in mind that even elsewhere, such as in Egypt, creation of meteoric Iron implements preceded the Iron age proper by 2-3 millennia, so even assuming the Thule had been propelled on a course toward their own Iron age they may not have achieved it until perhaps the year 3000 or later.
Very interesting. That makes the story more sensible, I suppose.