The Dorset Culture

Presently, the Arctic regions of Canada are inhabited by the Inuit people, but prior to their appearance, a different group of individuals, known as the Dorset people, dominated the icy lands of the north. They thrived in that region from approximately 500 B.C. to 1000 A.D., but then they gradually went into decline for several reasons. Although the Dorset people lived in the area for more than a millennium, the first evidence proving their existence was not uncovered until the early twentieth century. = Nothing was known of the Dorset people until the 1900s despite them having existed for more than 1,000 years

At an archaeological site at Cape Dorset on Baffin Island, numerous strange artifacts clearly from a group of people older than the Inuit unearthed / were unearthed. In 1925, Canadian anthropologist Diamond Jenness named this newfound culture for the place where the artifacts had been discovered. 1단락요약

「The Dorset people were descendants of a group of Arctic denizens <-known to contemporary archaeologists as Palaeo-Eskimo cultures. The individuals in these cultures lived during a time when the weather was much warmer than today, so they could hunt in the interior parts of the Arctic. Then, around 500 B.C., the Arctic climate changed and became much colder. The Dorset people survived since they managed to adapt to the frigid weather by developing tools and methods to hunt on ice. For instance, knowing that seals surfaced in holes in the ice to breathe oxygen, ->they would wait patiently by ice holes for their unwary prey to break the water’s surface. They additionally made large harpoons that they utilized to spear s living on the shore as well as small whales they attacked from the edge of the ice. Among the whale species they hunted from shore ― there is no evidence that they constructed boats to hunt whales from―were the  and . 2단락요약

It was capable of keeping multiple people safe from the elements despite being made primarily of packed snow and ice

①Occasionally, the Dorset people remained on the ice to hunt and collect meat for long periods of time, so, to survive, they developed the snow house, which is more commonly known as the igloo, and burned animal  from whales and other animals to keep warm. ②The blubber was burned in soapstone lamps that the Dorset people carved and which have the appearance of small bowls. ③To assist their movement on the ice, the Dorset people developed sled shoes made of bone and ivory that enabled them to slide / slide along the ice like modern-day ice skaters, and they created what / which appear to be crampons made from the jawbones and teeth of some animals they hunted.④ 3단락요약

「Since they needed to be near their food supply, the Dorset people mainly resided near the shores of the Arctic Ocean on the modern-day Canadian mainland, but small groups of others lived on the many islands comprising the Arctic Archipelago. The biggest settlements were located near waters where sea mammals still thrive today. (=>The Dorset people stayed near the coast because they remained closer to where their food was.) There is no evidence that the Dorset people ever made their homes in the interior of the Canadian Arctic. As for their permanent homes, they primarily constructed them with stones and turf. First, they dug a foundation about half a meter into the ground, and then they utilized dug-up turf and nearby large stones for the walls. The roof was a frame of driftwood or animal bones covered with animal hides. While Dorset settlements were not large, different groups of them maintained contact with one another and traded items made from jade, copper, , and iron from . 4단락요약

The Dorset people relied on the sea, winter ice, and mammals that lived near them for their survival. When the northern area experienced a warming period around 1000, the ice began forming later in autumn and breaking up earlier in spring and additionally failed to cover much of the ocean, which left long stretches of water (that) the Dorset people were unable to cross to reach their traditional hunting areas. Simultaneously, the warming period allowed the ancestors of the modern-day Inuit, called the Thule people, to migrate from Alaska. They had dogs and large sleds and had learned to hunt large whales from boats on the ocean. Able to provide plenty of food for themselves, the Thule people’s population expanded, and they engaged in direct competition with the Dorset people. The combination of the warm weather and the Thule people caused the Dorset people to go into terminal decline, and they vanished entirely sometime between 1200 and 1500. 5단락요약

Glossary

blubber: animal fat

crampon: a piece of metal designed to help a person climb or walk better in snowy or icy conditions archipelago: a chain of islands

not ~ until...

...가 되어서 ~해지다.

Introducing the exposure of the Dorset existence and its culture disappearing.

=inhabitants

의미상주어

How the Dorset people managed to survive in very cold weather.

to+동사, S+V

The description of developments by the Dorset people to survive on the ice

= grass

The lifestyle of the Dorset people’s settlement.

=extension

=the s_____________ to the dorset people

=went extinct

The causes of the Dorset people’s decline