{"id":1064,"date":"2008-02-21T20:41:42","date_gmt":"2008-02-22T01:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2018-08-15T00:31:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T04:31:33","slug":"wednesday-february-20-2008-how-far-could-they-paddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1064","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, February 21, 2008 \u2014 How Far Could They Paddle?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A read\u00ader asked me why I assumed that late mesolith\u00adic and ear\u00adly neolith\u00adic peo\u00adples could under\u00adtake long riv\u00ader and coastal journeys. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"08-02-21<\/a>Let me tell you about a lit\u00adtle place in north\u00adern Cana\u00adda called Peawanuck. I have writ\u00adten about it else\u00adwhere, because it has sen\u00adti\u00admen\u00adtal impor\u00adtance to me. It also has some impor\u00adtance to the out\u00adside world, because, since 2000 it has been the site of the Peawanuck Neu\u00adtron Mon\u00adi\u00adtor. This is part of a glob\u00adal net\u00adwork of neu\u00adtron mon\u00adi\u00adtors strate\u00adgi\u00adcal\u00adly locat\u00aded to pro\u00advide pre\u00adcise, real-time, 3\u2011dimensional mea\u00adsure\u00adments of cos\u00admic ray angu\u00adlar dis\u00adtri\u00adb\u00adu\u00adtion activ\u00adi\u00adty. If your main inter\u00adest is his\u00adto\u00adry, you may not know why this is impor\u00adtant, but trust me, it is. Oth\u00ader mon\u00adi\u00adtors are locat\u00aded at the South Pole, Maw\u00adson and McMur\u00addo Sound sta\u00adtions in Antarc\u00adti\u00adca; at Inu\u00advik, Fort Smith, Nain, and Goose Bay in Cana\u00adda; at Thule in Green\u00adland; on Sval\u00adbard (the arc\u00adtic island which appears in The Gold\u00aden Com\u00adpass<\/em>); and Apati\u00adty in north\u00adern Rus\u00adsia. These loca\u00adtions share an obvi\u00adous char\u00adac\u00adter\u00adis\u00adtic: remoteness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Peawanuck has a pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtion of 300, and it can\u00adnot be reached by road, as no road comes any\u00adwhere near it. It is pos\u00adsi\u00adble to push a truck along a tem\u00adpo\u00adrary ice road dur\u00ading part of the win\u00adter, but that comes in from Fort Sev\u00adern in the west, and to reach the near\u00adest real road this way is a dan\u00adger\u00adous thou\u00adsand kilo\u00adme\u00adter trek into Man\u00adi\u00adto\u00adba. So Peawanuck is remote, by anyone\u2019s stan\u00addards. The nor\u00admal access is via a $1600 plane flight from the near\u00adest large town. Before the 1960s, vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly all trav\u00adel was by foot, canoe, or dog-sled.<\/span><\/p>\n

The peo\u00adple of Peawanuck, the Weenusk, form part of the Nish\u00adnawbe-Aski Nation and are gov\u00aderned by the Mushkegowuk Trib\u00adal Coun\u00adcil. Most peo\u00adple there live by hunt\u00ading, fish\u00ading, and trap\u00adping, or by guid\u00ading the occa\u00adsion\u00adal adven\u00adtur\u00adous tourist to see the polar bears and oth\u00ader wildlife, or to fish in the Winisk riv\u00ader sys\u00adtem. It\u2019s a fine lit\u00adtle place. It has some social prob\u00adlems, and young peo\u00adple must leave to find work, but cul\u00adtur\u00adal\u00adly, it is strong, and tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal lan\u00adguage and cus\u00adtoms thrive.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rea\u00adson I bring up Peawanuck is that, until the 1950\u2019s, there wasn\u2019t much about life in the vil\u00adlage that would have been out of place in Mesolith\u00adic Europe. Cer\u00adtain\u00adly, in the 19th cen\u00adtu\u00adry, life in Peawanuck would have been almost indis\u00adtin\u00adguish\u00adable from a set\u00adtle\u00adment in the far north of Europe in 6000 BC<\/span>. When I look over the maps and site recon\u00adstruc\u00adtions in archae\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal reports from, say, the Erte\u00adb\u00f8lle cul\u00adture of ancient Scan\u00addi\u00adnavia, every\u00adthing about them looks famil\u00adiar. Every\u00adthing is com\u00adpre\u00adhen\u00adsi\u00adble. I have no trou\u00adble visu\u00adal\u00adiz\u00ading the lifestyle. That\u2019s why, when I read dis\u00adcus\u00adsions among archae\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgists about pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric Europe, some\u00adtimes they ring true to me, and some\u00adtimes they don\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

What rings the most false to me are the assump\u00adtions that pre\u00adhis\u00adto\u00adri\u00adans make about mobil\u00adi\u00adty, trav\u00adel, and trade. There is no ques\u00adtion that there was exten\u00adsive trade across pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric Europe. The dis\u00adtri\u00adb\u00adu\u00adtion of arti\u00adfacts shows this. But it is still cus\u00adtom\u00adary for archae\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgists to assume that peo\u00adple didn\u2019t trav\u00adel any sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcant dis\u00adtance, and that trade was \u201cnot real\u00adly\u201d trade. First, dis\u00adcus\u00adsion con\u00adcen\u00adtrates on fan\u00adcy objects that had a good chance of being pre\u00adserved as grave goods, rather than ordi\u00adnary goods, which obvi\u00adous\u00adly would not. Next, it is assert\u00aded that trade objects only moved from hand to hand in tiny steps, going through a mul\u00adti\u00adtude of inter\u00adme\u00addi\u00adaries. The impli\u00adca\u00adtion is that nobody real\u00adly knew what they were doing: that, say, bits of amber just drift\u00aded south\u00adward across Europe in a hap\u00adhaz\u00adard fash\u00adion, and that nobody involved knew where they came from or where they were going. This is part of a deeply embed\u00added mind-set. Euro\u00adpean schol\u00adars start absorb\u00ading clich\u00e9s about immo\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty prac\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly from the cra\u00addle. How often have you been told, for exam\u00adple, that medieval peas\u00adants \u201cnev\u00ader trav\u00adeled more than a few miles from where they were born\u201d \u2015 despite the fact that this notion has been repeat\u00aded\u00adly dis\u00adproved by genet\u00adic stud\u00adies and parish records of births and mar\u00adriages? Not to men\u00adtion the fact that a healthy human being can walk 80 kilo\u00adme\u00adters in a day (as I have done many times). But this image of a pre-mod\u00adern, or a pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric per\u00adson exist\u00ading in a tiny cocoon of igno\u00adrance, unable to move or think out\u00adside of a few acres, sim\u00adply doesn\u2019t accord with what I know about a hunt\u00ading and gath\u00ader\u00ading lifestyle that still exists, and exist\u00aded in rel\u00ada\u00adtive\u00adly pris\u00adtine form, only a short time ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

We know exact\u00adly how much Peawanuck\u00ad\u2019s peo\u00adple trav\u00adeled, tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal\u00adly, and how far. Nor\u00admal con\u00adnec\u00adtions of trade, fam\u00adi\u00adly vis\u00adits, friend\u00adship, and polit\u00adi\u00adcal con\u00adtacts on a per\u00adson\u00adal lev\u00adel extend\u00aded from the Winisk riv\u00ader (the \u201chome\u00adland\u201d) as far east as west\u00adern Que\u00adbec, as far west as Nor\u00adway House in Man\u00adi\u00adto\u00adba, all along the Hudson\u2019s Bay coast as far as the Chippewyan ter\u00adri\u00adto\u00adries in the north\u00adwest and the Innu\u00adit set\u00adtle\u00adments in the north\u00adeast, and as far south as the height-of land in Algo\u00adma, and the shores of Lake Supe\u00adri\u00ador. This is still the rough area with\u00adin which peo\u00adple are like\u00adly to have some rel\u00ada\u00adtives, or oth\u00ader per\u00adson\u00adal con\u00adnec\u00adtions. This area is larg\u00ader than France.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trade with\u00adin this area was exten\u00adsive, and it exist\u00aded long before any influ\u00adence by Euro\u00adpeans. It was trade, not some mys\u00adti\u00adcal non-eco\u00adnom\u00adic \u201cgift exchange\u201d. Hard-head\u00aded, prof\u00adit-ori\u00adent\u00aded, prac\u00adti\u00adcal, val\u00adue for val\u00adue trade. It was not con\u00adfined to \u201cpres\u00adtige objects\u201d or cer\u00ade\u00admo\u00adni\u00adal trin\u00adkets. Most of it involved mov\u00ading ordi\u00adnary, use\u00adful goods in large quan\u00adti\u00adties from places where they were abun\u00addant to places where they were scarce, in exchange for goods of pro\u00adpor\u00adtion\u00adate val\u00adue. Lux\u00adu\u00adry goods, as in most real-life economies, rode pig\u00adgy-back on trade net\u00adworks already estab\u00adlished for more prac\u00adti\u00adcal com\u00admodi\u00adties. Trade was not dri\u00adven by, orga\u00adnized by, or for the ben\u00ade\u00adfit of elites. The Weenusk nev\u00ader had any \u201celites\u201d \u2015 no kings, no pow\u00ader\u00adful chiefs, nobody who could boss any\u00adone around. Tobac\u00adco import\u00aded from thou\u00adsands of kilo\u00adme\u00adters away was for everyone.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A read\u00ader asked me why I assumed that late mesolith\u00adic and ear\u00adly neolith\u00adic peo\u00adples could under\u00adtake long riv\u00ader and coastal jour\u00adneys. Let me tell you about a lit\u00adtle place in north\u00adern Cana\u00adda called Peawanuck. I have writ\u00adten about it else\u00adwhere, because \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-as-blog-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1064"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8706,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1064\/revisions\/8706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}