THULE CULTURE

prehistoric Eskimo (Inuit) culture that developed along the Arctic coast in northern Alaska and possibly as far east as the Amundsen Gulf. It spread rapidly eastward, starting about 900 and reaching Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) by the 12th century. It continued to develop in the central areas of Arctic Canada, and there was a feedback movement from the Eastern Thule to the Western Thule of Alaska from about 1300 to 1700. Thule culture was oriented toward whaling. Settlements of permanent winter houses built of whale bones, skin, and sod, some of them semisubterranean, were located on the seashore. Snowhouses were built during winter journeys, and skin tents probably were used in summer. Whales, seals, walrus, polar bears, caribou, musk-oxen, and smaller mammals were hunted. Birds, fish, mussels, and plants were also collected. Kayaks (one-man covered skin boats), umiaks (large, open skin boats), and dog-drawn sleds provided transportation. Stone lamps and cooking pots, ground-slate implements, and whalebone were characteristic. Thule art includes small carved ivory or wooden figures, possibly used for magic or for games. Thule culture is considered a highly developed and specialized Eskimo culture, with all the typical Eskimo implements and weapons, that greatly influenced later Eskimo cultural development. It probably survives in modified form to the present in parts of eastern Canada, northern Greenland, and northwestern Alaska. Western Thule culture, influenced by eastern advances, forms the basis for Alaskan cultural development. Thule culture disappeared from the central areas, possibly because of climatic changes, in the 15th century.