Benoit Aquin
This past July, the Department of Archaeology did a week of intensive survey in Aupaluk.
During the summer of 2012 Avataq Cultural Institute conducted salvage excavations on three sites near the town of Inukjuak.
On July 17th, 2012, a team of three archaeologists—Jennifer M. Bracewell (Avataq Cultural Institute, QC), Elspeth Ready (Doctoral Candidate, Stanford University, CA), and Dr Frédéric Dessène (PhD, Universités Paris I and Rome I)—arrived at the peninsula of Aivirtuuq, about 30 kilometers SE of the village of Kangiqsujuaq.
The production of stone tools using the skillful application of pressure was a technique employed in Nunavik for thousands of years by Pre-Dorset and Dorset peoples. This technique had also been used in many other areas of the world. It most likely originated from a region that included part of Siberia, Mongolia and Northern China around 20,000 years ago. This is the subject of the book entitled the Emergence of Pressure Blade Making edited by Avataq archaeologist Pierre M. Desrosiers.
This year was the third edition of Avataq’s Archaeology Week. Six students from Akulivik, who had participated in the archaeological excavation of the Kangiakallak site on Smith Island, were invited for this activity.
