Background
People first travelled to this part of Greenland, Tunup Avannaarsua, or the Great North of East Greenland, around 4500 years ago. They were the ancient people who formed the first wave of migration from Alaska across the Canadian Arctic into Northern Greenland, eventually settling in what we are calling Inutoqqat Nunaat, the “Land of the Ancient People”, the area around Wandel Dal and Independence Fjord.
From dated artefacts, we know that people first lived in Wandel Dal between 4500-3850 years before present (BP) and again between 2900-2250 years BP. After 2250 years BP, the region was completely abandoned, except for intermittent, short-term use by Thule people, the ancestors of modern Inuit, in the last ~600 years. We also know from archaeological remains that there would have been abundant muskoxen, hares, foxes, birds and char in this “high arctic oasis” during the time they were there. However, much of the history of these northernmost people on the planet, including their settlement, use, and the reasons for their abandonment of the region, remains a mystery. We hypothesize that past favourable climates (warm, stable) and abundant hunting resources would have been critical to sustain life at these latitudes and that climate and environmental changes in the last ~5000 years would have been a critical component in the migration of people in and out of this region.
With this project, our interdisciplinary team seeks to understand the climate history of Inutoqqat Nunaat and to place the ancient occupation of Wandel Dal into a broader climate perspective. Using the shores of Nedre Midsommersø (Lower Midsummer Lake) as our base, we will retrieve and analyze lake sediment cores from the lake (and nearby lakes) to understand the ~5000-year climate history of this region including temperature, rainfall, lake ice cover, as well as the presence of terrestrial plants and animals. We will also map the key archaeological features of the lake and adjacent fjord, and better constrain the timing of these sites and their occupation. Together with modelling, we will develop a comprehensive understanding of the human-climate interactions in Wandel Dal and how they relate to broader shifts in glacier fluctuations, ocean circulation, and polynya dynamics, and the Holocene climate history of the Arctic.