Eskimos

Eskimo Cultures and Languages

The earliest evidence of Eskimo culture dates to about 3000 b.c.e., Siberian descendants who had likely migrated between 15,000 and 5000 b.c.e. These early Eskimos were part of the Arctic small-tool tradition (ASTt), an anthropological term for a tradition of tool-using cultures found in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and eastern Siberia. The ASTt cultures used microblade technology consisting of side and end blades, scrapers, and burins (chisel-like tools made of lithic flake) in spears and arrows fashioned from bones or antlers. The ASTt probably introduced archery to the Arctic and included both nomadic and sedentary groups, typically living along waterways for better seal hunting or salmon fishing.

At some point the Aleut, though descended from this early Eskimo culture, became culturally distinct, perhaps due to their geographic isolation from the people who became the Yunik and Inupiat. The Aleut language is part of the Eskimo-Aleut family, but they are not considered an Eskimo people.

The Yupik peoples include speakers of four Yupik languages—Naukan Yupik, spoken by a small community on the Chukotka Peninsula of Siberia; Central Siberian Yupik, spoken mainly in Siberia but also by the community of about 1,000 Yupiks on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska; Central Alaskan Yupik, spoken throughout the Alaskan mainland; and Alutiiq or Pacific Yupik, spoken from the Alaska Peninsula to Prince William Sound. A fifth language, Sirenik, was spoken on the Chukotka Peninsula of Russia, but it has been extinct since the last native speaker died in 1997.

The Inuit language, spoken by the Inuit and Inupiat peoples of the Arctic, is descended from the language of the Thule people. The Thule culture dates to about 1000 c.e., with beginnings in coastal [Page 810]Alaska and spreading across Canada to Greenland over the next four centuries. The Thule most likely were in contact with the Vikings of Greenland and the Canadian coast and lived migratory lives based on their hunting of large sea mammals, including whales. Their culture splintered during the Little Ice Age (1650–1850), with individual groups becoming the direct ancestors of today's Inuit cultures. In Alaska, the main Inuit dialects spoken are Qawiaraq, spoken on the Seward Peninsula and in the Norton Sound and Bering Strait areas; and Inupiatun, spoken on the North Slope and northwestern Alaska. Inuit is also one of the official languages of Canada's Northwest Territories.

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