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Ritual Activity and the Formation of Faunal Assemblages at Two Groswater Palaeoeskimo Sites at Port au Choix

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Book cover The Cultural Landscapes of Port au Choix

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology ((IDCA))

Abstract

Faunal assemblages from archaeological contexts are usually viewed as the remains of consumption that offer insights into past cultural behaviour such as hunting, processing, transporting and scavenging. However, faunal remains can also provide information about the ritual treatment of animal remains (Jones O’Day et al. 2004; Muir and Driver 2004; Murray 2000; Renouf 2000). This paper presents a comparative examination of faunal remains from middens at two nearby Groswater Palaeoeskimo sites on the Point Riche peninsula in northwestern Newfoundland, Phillip’s Garden West (EeBi-11) and Phillip’s Garden East (EeBi-1) (Renouf 2005; Wells 2002). Animal exploitation at these temporally overlapping settlements was focused almost exclusively on seal hunting, particularly of the huge harp seal populations that still frequent these waters each late fall and spring (see Murray, Chap. 11). The stone tool assemblage at Phillip’s Garden West deviates substantially from typical forms. Qualitative and quantitative descriptions of this particular morphological variant have been presented by Renouf (2005) and Ryan (Chap. 5; see also Melnik 2007 for further discussion).

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Notes

  1. 1.

     All radiocarbon dates in this chapter are uncalibrated years before present (BP); the dates are calibrated in Table 4.1. See also Appendix.

  2. 2.

    Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient was used in this study to test significance of relationships. The correlation coefficient is a value that ranges from 1 to −1 and is expressed as r s. Significance values are given for each r s in order to assess confidence that this value is not the result of sampling vagaries and is expressed as p (Drennan 1996:231). As p values decrease, confidence rises. A p value of 0.05 or lower is considered significant in social sciences and is used here.

  3. 3.

    MAU values against %MUI (ungrouped elements)

    Feature 18 r s  =  −0.5, p  <  0.05

    Feature 5A–D r s  =  −0.4, p  <  0.01

    Feature 5E r s  =  −0.4, p  <  0.2

    Phillip’s Garden East r s  =  −0.2, p  <  0.5

  4. 4.

    I confirmed the low cranial numbers for the unidentified portion of Feature 18 by quickly examining the whole assemblage. Furthermore, I viewed the remaining faunal material from the rest of the site, which had been excavated in its entirety, and found very few cranial elements.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (MUN) and the Smallwood Centre for Newfoundland and Labrador Studies (MUN). I am very grateful to my supervisor, Dr. M.A.P. Renouf, and to Dr. Lisa Hodgetts, both of whom assisted in all aspects of my research. Darlene Balkwill and Anne Rick, both formerly of the Canadian Museum of Nature, contributed to the identification of some of the Phillip’s Garden East seal material. Thanks to Charlie Conway, Memorial University Geography, who drafted the map. I am also grateful for the helpful comments of two anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada, A1C 5S7

    Patricia J. Wells

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  1. Archaeology Unit, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, A1C 5S7, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

    M. A. P. Renouf

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Wells, P.J. (2011). Ritual Activity and the Formation of Faunal Assemblages at Two Groswater Palaeoeskimo Sites at Port au Choix. In: Renouf, M. (eds) The Cultural Landscapes of Port au Choix. Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8324-4_4

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