Dorset Culture - Technology

Technology

Scholars credit the Dorset with a faultless understanding of their local environment (which they may have shared with the newly arrived Inuit). But, their adaptation was different from that of the whaling-based Thule Inuit. Specifically, the Dorset did little hunting of land animals, such as polar bears and caribou. They lacked bow and arrow technology. Instead, they relied upon sea mammals (mostly seal), which they hunted from holes in the ice. Their clothing was well adapted to extremely cold weather.

Technological diagnostics of the Dorset culture include small, triangular end-blades; soapstone; and burins. The end-blades were hafted onto harpoon heads. They primarily used the harpoons to hunt seal, but also hunted larger sea mammals such as walrus and narwhals. They used soapstone to make lamps, which when filled with seal oil, would heat the Dorset dwellings during the cold and dark months. The distinctive burins were a special type of stone flake with a chisel-like edge. They were probably used for engraving, or for carving wood or bone. The burins were also used by Pre-Dorset groups; they usually had a distinctive mitten shape.

The Dorset were highly skilled at making refined miniature carvings, and striking masks. Both indicate an active shamanistic tradition. The Dorset culture was remarkably homogeneous across the Canadian Arctic, but there were some important variations which have been noted in both Greenland and Newfoundland/Labrador regions.