The Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt) was a broad cultural entity that developed along the Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait around 2500 BC. ASTt groups were the first human occupants of Arctic Canada and Greenland. This was a terrestrial entity that had a highly distinctive toolkit based on microblade technology. Typicaly tool types include scrapers, burins and side and end blades used in composite arrows or spears made of other materials, such as bone or antler. Many researchers also assume that it was Arctic Small Tool populations who first introduced the bow and arrow to the Arctic. ASTt camps are often found along coasts and streams, to take advantage of seal or salmon populations. While some of the groups were fairly nomadic, more permanent, sod-roofed homes have also been identified from Arctic Small Tool tradition sites.
The Arctic Small Tool tradition includes a number of cultural groups, including the Denbigh Flint Complex in Alaska, the Pre-Dorset culture in Arctic Canada, Independence I culture in the High Arctic and Saqqaq culture in southern Greenland. The ASTt was followed by the Norton tradition in Alaska and the Dorset culture in Arctic Canada.
Famous quotes containing the words arctic, small, tool and/or tradition:
“The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.”
—Robert Frost (18741963)
“As a general rule never take your whole fee in advance, nor any more than a small retainer. When fully paid beforehand, you are more than a common mortal if you can feel the same interest in the case, as if something was still in prospect for you, as well as for your client.”
—Abraham Lincoln (18091865)
“One of the great reasons for the popularity of strikes is that they give the suppressed self a sense of power. For once the human tool knows itself a man, able to stand up and speak a word or strike a blow.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (18641929)
“The tradition I cherish is the ideal this country was built upon, the concept of religious pluralism, of a plethora of opinions, of tolerance and not the jihad. Religious war, pooh. The war is between those who trust us to think and those who believe we must merely be led.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)