Robert W Park
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 806311 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Robert W Park |
| NOMBRES | Robert W |
| APELLIDO | Park |
| FIRMA | PARK R W |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4520-6382 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 37 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 130 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 37 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1987 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 6 |
DNA identifications of three 1845 Franklin expedition sailors from HMS Erebus
DNA identification of remains of three members of the 1845 Franklin expedition. • All three sailors died at Erebus Bay, King William Island. • Deaths of two men previously identified occurred at the same sites at Erebus Bay. • All five sailors identified to date through DNA analysis are from HMS Erebus. A program of DNA analysis initiated in 2013 as a means of attempting to identify skeletal remains of members of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passa…
“Some very hard ground to heave”
Since 1859, attempts to resolve the question of the identity of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin expedition whose body was found that year on the south shore of King William Island have been complicated by contradictory evidence found with the skeleton. Documents found with the body implied the man was Harry Peglar, Captain of the Foretop, but the clothing indicated the man held a domestic rating, a steward or officer’s servant. This paper examine…
Growing up North
The archaeologists who study childhood are ourselves the end product of an approach to learning that is antithetical to how learning occurred in one of the most evocative of foraging cultures: the Inuit. Archaeologists-to-be in most societies undergo direct instruction - ie formal teaching - throughout the many years of their education, starting in preschool. At all levels, from preschool through doctoral studies, learners are encouraged to ask, …
Integrating Oral History and Archaeology of the 1845 Franklin Expedition
Attempts to accurately reconstruct events that occurred during the final phases of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage expedition face a key challenge: how to address inconsistencies and, in some cases, contradictions between historical descriptions of sites and the archaeological evidence they contain. This paper examines the case of site NcLa-1 at Kungearkbeearu, on the Simpson Strait coast of King William Island, for which the Inuit oral histo…
Identification of a senior officer from Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition
Remains of Franklin expedition sailor discovered in 1993 identified via DNA. • Genetic study reveals place of death of Captain James Fitzjames, HMS Erebus. • Captain James Fitzjames died less than 80 km from where the ships were deserted. • New insights into cannibalism on the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition. Arctic Canada’s King William Island and Adelaide Peninsula have preserved the unidentified skeletal remains of many of the 105 s…
The Thule Migration
The process by which the Thule Inuit migrated from the region around Bering Strait into Arctic Canada and Greenland, which is notable for its logistical complexities, the varied and difficult regions traversed and then populated, and for the enormous distance covered, is almost invariably described in terms emphasizing the pace at which it took place. The most common description is “rapid,” and some descriptions conclude it may have been accompli…
DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition
The 1845 British polar expedition in search of a northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic under the command of Sir John Franklin resulted in the greatest loss of life event in the history of polar exploration. The names of the 129 officers and crew who sailed and died on the catastrophic voyage are known, but the identification of their skeletons found scattered along the route of their attempted escape is problematic. Here, we report DNA an…
The “Cast Iron Site”—A Tale of Four Stoves from the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition
Few detailed analyses exist for the majority of the sites that comprise the archaeological record of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage expedition. This paper presents the results of new investigations of an Inuit site (NgLj-9) at Erebus Bay on King William Island, Nunavut, containing materials derived from the 1845 Franklin expedition. The complex history of the origin and use of artifacts found at the site and its relationship to other Frankli…
A Franklin expedition officer's burial at Two Grave Bay, King William Island, Nunavut
Use your best endeavours to discover a sheltered and safe harbour
On 24 May 1847, Sir John Franklin’s third expedition reported “All well”, but less than a year later, on 22 April 1848, the 129 sailors who had set out from Britain on Erebus and Terror had been reduced to 105 survivors departing their frozen ships in a desperate attempt to escape the Arctic. At least 24 were so unhealthy that they would perish after having travelled little more than 100 km from the ships. By contrast, the small mortality rates o…
Integrated Geophysical Techniques for the Archaeological Investigation of LbDt-1, a Paleo-Inuit Lithic Quarry Site in the Interior of Southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
Finding Franklin
History, Oral History and Archaeology
Historical and archaeological records are examined for three archaeological sites at Erebus Bay, King William Island, associated with the 1845 John Franklin expedition. Comparison of 19th century historical descriptions with archaeological data from sites NgLj-1 and NgLj-3 establishes that the identification of NgLj-1 as the site of the 1859 McClintock “boat place” is incorrect and that NgLj-3 is the actual site. An assessment of 19th century ora…
DNA analysis of human skeletal remains from the 1845 Franklin expedition
Applying GIS and statistical analysis to assess the correlation of human behaviour and ephemeral architectural features among Palaeo-Eskimo sites on Southern Baffin Island, Nunavut
Combining chert provenance and least-cost pathway analyses to reconstruct Pre-Dorset and Dorset mobility on southern Baffin Island
Manual Point Cloud Classification and Extraction for Hunter-Gatherer Feature Investigation
For archaeologists, the task of processing large terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)-derived point cloud data can be difficult, particularly when focusing on acquiring analytical and interpretive outcomes from the data. Using our TLS lidar data collected in 2013 from two compositionally different, low Arctic multi-component hunter-gatherer sites (LdFa-1 and LeDx-42), we demonstrate how a manual point cloud classification approach with open source so…
A human-centered GIS approach to modeling mobility on southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
Southern Baffin Island has been occupied for several millennia, but its enormous size, coupled with scarcity of identified inland archaeological sites that can be confidently linked to coastal occupations, makes modeling ancient seasonal mobility across the region through traditional cost-surface least-cost pathway approaches impractical. We present a method that combines weighted multi-criteria cost surface analysis with a watershed function to …
Characterizing southern Baffin Island chert
Pre-Dorset Culture
This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the widespread and diverse Pre-Dorset culture, known from the central and eastern parts of the Canadian Arctic between 4500 and 2700 B.P. The Pre-Dorset were mobile foragers, moving across the landscape to exploit seasonally available land and sea mammals in different locales, although the extent of their movements varied considerably. The lithic component of their technology has been more inte…
Faces from the Franklin expedition? Craniofacial reconstructions of two members of the 1845 northwest passage expedition
In 2013, partial skeletal remains from three members of the 1845 John Franklin expedition were recovered from an archaeological site at Erebus Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. The remains included three crania, two of which were sufficiently intact to allow craniofacial reconstructions. Identifications are not proposed for either reconstruction; however, tentative identifications are being explored through DNA analyses currently underway that i…
The “Boat Place” Burial
In 2013, a burial feature was excavated at NgLj-3, a Franklin expedition archaeological site on the Erebus Bay coast of King William Island. The feature contained 72 human bones representing a minimum of three individuals. The composition of the assemblage closely matches the description of skeletal remains of members of the Franklin expedition buried by Frederick Schwatka in 1879. Analysis suggests that the remains include those of the two men d…
Combined Geophysical Approach in a Complex Arctic Archaeological Environment
In 2014, we mapped the complex landscape of component Area 5 at LdFa‐1, a 3000‐year‐old Palaeoeskimo site located in the deep interior of southern Baffin Island, using a combined magnetic and electromagnetic approach to define the physical characteristics of any large‐ or small‐scale anthropogenic anomalies. Measurements were made using a GEM Systems Overhauser magnetometer‐gradiometer and Geonics EM31 instrument, and a survey configuration desig…
Adapting to a Frozen Coastal Environment
A Prehistory of the North
The Dorset-Thule Succession in Arctic North America
Most Arctic archaeologists believe that the people of the Thule culture, who arrived in the eastern Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, met people of the Dorset culture and acquired important knowledge from them while replacing them in this region. The most convincing indication for technology transfer comes from the Thule adoption of Dorset harpoon-head styles. However, a review of radiocarbon dates, artifact styles, and site data reveals no c…
Size counts
The role and place of children is frequently overlooked in archaeology. Here Robert Park presents an intriguing analysis of the toys of childhood found in Inuit societies in Canada and Greenland, and assesses how such objects inform on the role of children in Arctic societies
Growing Up North
In late prehistoric times the Canadian Arctic was occupied sequentially by the peoples known to archaeologists as the Dorset and the Thule cultures, the latter being the direct cultural and biological ancestors of the Inuit who live there today. For archaeologists interested in exploring aspects of childhood, the Thule culture has three very desirable characteristics: potentially magnificent preservation due to the effects of permafrost; a comple…
Characterizing southern Baffin Island chert
Thule Winter Site Demography in the High Arctic
The people of the Thule culture, who entered the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago and eventually became the Inuit who today inhabit that region, spent the long winters living in impressive semisubterranean houses constructed of boulders, skins, pieces of cut turf, and the bones of bowhead whales. Most sites contain fewer than 10 houses, but some contain many more, leading to disagreement among archaeologists concerning Thule settleme…
Applying GIS and statistical analysis to assess the correlation of human behaviour and ephemeral architectural features among Palaeo-Eskimo sites on Southern Baffin Island, Nunavut
Combining chert provenance and least-cost pathway analyses to reconstruct Pre-Dorset and Dorset mobility on southern Baffin Island
Pre-Dorset Culture
This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the widespread and diverse Pre-Dorset culture, known from the central and eastern parts of the Canadian Arctic between 4500 and 2700 B.P. The Pre-Dorset were mobile foragers, moving across the landscape to exploit seasonally available land and sea mammals in different locales, although the extent of their movements varied considerably. The lithic component of their technology has been more inte…
Combined Geophysical Approach in a Complex Arctic Archaeological Environment
In 2014, we mapped the complex landscape of component Area 5 at LdFa‐1, a 3000‐year‐old Palaeoeskimo site located in the deep interior of southern Baffin Island, using a combined magnetic and electromagnetic approach to define the physical characteristics of any large‐ or small‐scale anthropogenic anomalies. Measurements were made using a GEM Systems Overhauser magnetometer‐gradiometer and Geonics EM31 instrument, and a survey configuration desig…
The Dorset culture longhouse at Brooman Point, Nunavut
This paper presents a brief description of a Late Dorset culture longhouse structure and its associated hearth rows located at the Brooman Point site. Following a description of the spatial distribution of finds recovered through the excavation of the longhouse, the paper explores the significance of the architectural and artifactual patterning seen at Brooman Point and other longhouse sites. It is argued that the concept of linearity underlies t…
Use your best endeavours to discover a sheltered and safe harbour
On 24 May 1847, Sir John Franklin’s third expedition reported “All well”, but less than a year later, on 22 April 1848, the 129 sailors who had set out from Britain on Erebus and Terror had been reduced to 105 survivors departing their frozen ships in a desperate attempt to escape the Arctic. At least 24 were so unhealthy that they would perish after having travelled little more than 100 km from the ships. By contrast, the small mortality rates o…
Integrated Geophysical Techniques for the Archaeological Investigation of LbDt-1, a Paleo-Inuit Lithic Quarry Site in the Interior of Southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
DNA analysis of human skeletal remains from the 1845 Franklin expedition
Contact between the Norse Vikings and the Dorset culture in Arctic Canada
Instances of cultural interaction between Norse and native American have long been accepted. But current archaeological research recognises that the indigenous peoples of the north were themselves diverse and had diverse histories. Here the author shows that the culture of one of them, the Dorset people, owed nothing to the Norse and probably had no contact with them
A human-centered GIS approach to modeling mobility on southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
Southern Baffin Island has been occupied for several millennia, but its enormous size, coupled with scarcity of identified inland archaeological sites that can be confidently linked to coastal occupations, makes modeling ancient seasonal mobility across the region through traditional cost-surface least-cost pathway approaches impractical. We present a method that combines weighted multi-criteria cost surface analysis with a watershed function to …
On the Dorset/Thule Analogy for the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition
Growing up North
The archaeologists who study childhood are ourselves the end product of an approach to learning that is antithetical to how learning occurred in one of the most evocative of foraging cultures: the Inuit. Archaeologists-to-be in most societies undergo direct instruction - ie formal teaching - throughout the many years of their education, starting in preschool. At all levels, from preschool through doctoral studies, learners are encouraged to ask, …
Identification of a senior officer from Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition
Remains of Franklin expedition sailor discovered in 1993 identified via DNA. • Genetic study reveals place of death of Captain James Fitzjames, HMS Erebus. • Captain James Fitzjames died less than 80 km from where the ships were deserted. • New insights into cannibalism on the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage Expedition. Arctic Canada’s King William Island and Adelaide Peninsula have preserved the unidentified skeletal remains of many of the 105 s…
DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition
The 1845 British polar expedition in search of a northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic under the command of Sir John Franklin resulted in the greatest loss of life event in the history of polar exploration. The names of the 129 officers and crew who sailed and died on the catastrophic voyage are known, but the identification of their skeletons found scattered along the route of their attempted escape is problematic. Here, we report DNA an…
A Franklin expedition officer's burial at Two Grave Bay, King William Island, Nunavut
Faces from the Franklin expedition? Craniofacial reconstructions of two members of the 1845 northwest passage expedition
In 2013, partial skeletal remains from three members of the 1845 John Franklin expedition were recovered from an archaeological site at Erebus Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. The remains included three crania, two of which were sufficiently intact to allow craniofacial reconstructions. Identifications are not proposed for either reconstruction; however, tentative identifications are being explored through DNA analyses currently underway that i…
Dog Remains from Devon Island, N.W.T
A collection of dog bones recovered from a Thule culture site at Porden Point, Devon Island, N.W.T., was found to include abundant evidence of trauma consistent with the dogs have been repeatedly struck in the facial area. The proportional representation of bones found suggests that the Porden Point dogs ultimately formed part of the diet there. A survey of historical and ethnographic accounts of the treatment of dogs by various Inuit groups indi…
The Dorset-Thule Succession in Arctic North America
Most Arctic archaeologists believe that the people of the Thule culture, who arrived in the eastern Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, met people of the Dorset culture and acquired important knowledge from them while replacing them in this region. The most convincing indication for technology transfer comes from the Thule adoption of Dorset harpoon-head styles. However, a review of radiocarbon dates, artifact styles, and site data reveals no c…
Ancient People of the Arctic, by Robert McGhee
Thule Winter Site Demography in the High Arctic
The people of the Thule culture, who entered the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago and eventually became the Inuit who today inhabit that region, spent the long winters living in impressive semisubterranean houses constructed of boulders, skins, pieces of cut turf, and the bones of bowhead whales. Most sites contain fewer than 10 houses, but some contain many more, leading to disagreement among archaeologists concerning Thule settleme…
Size counts
The role and place of children is frequently overlooked in archaeology. Here Robert Park presents an intriguing analysis of the toys of childhood found in Inuit societies in Canada and Greenland, and assesses how such objects inform on the role of children in Arctic societies
On the Dorset/Thule Analogy for the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition
From Middle Ages to Colonial Times
The Dorset culture longhouse at Brooman Point, Nunavut
This paper presents a brief description of a Late Dorset culture longhouse structure and its associated hearth rows located at the Brooman Point site. Following a description of the spatial distribution of finds recovered through the excavation of the longhouse, the paper explores the significance of the architectural and artifactual patterning seen at Brooman Point and other longhouse sites. It is argued that the concept of linearity underlies t…
Growing Up North
In late prehistoric times the Canadian Arctic was occupied sequentially by the peoples known to archaeologists as the Dorset and the Thule cultures, the latter being the direct cultural and biological ancestors of the Inuit who live there today. For archaeologists interested in exploring aspects of childhood, the Thule culture has three very desirable characteristics: potentially magnificent preservation due to the effects of permafrost; a comple…
Contact between the Norse Vikings and the Dorset culture in Arctic Canada
Instances of cultural interaction between Norse and native American have long been accepted. But current archaeological research recognises that the indigenous peoples of the north were themselves diverse and had diverse histories. Here the author shows that the culture of one of them, the Dorset people, owed nothing to the Norse and probably had no contact with them
A Hans Krüger Arctic Expedition Cache on Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut
In 1999 a team of geologists discovered an archaeological site near Cape Southwest, Axel Heiberg Island. On the basis of its location and the analysis of two artifacts removed from the site, the discoverers concluded that it was a hastily abandoned campsite created by Hans Krüger’s German Arctic Expedition, which was believed to have disappeared between Meighen and Amund Ringnes islands in 1930. If the attribution to Krüger were correct, the exis…
A Prehistory of the North
Retracing the route of Hans K. E. Krüger's 1930 German Arctic expedition
Prior to the discovery in 1999 of an archaeological site near Cape Southwest, on southern Axel Heiberg Island, little was known about the movements of the ill fated 1930 German Arctic Expedition, led by Hans K.E. Krüger. What was known was based on the content of three cairn documents that spanned a period of just thirteen days. This paper presents new information that expands our knowledge of the expedition's route using catalogue labels found w…
Adapting to a Frozen Coastal Environment
The “Boat Place” Burial
In 2013, a burial feature was excavated at NgLj-3, a Franklin expedition archaeological site on the Erebus Bay coast of King William Island. The feature contained 72 human bones representing a minimum of three individuals. The composition of the assemblage closely matches the description of skeletal remains of members of the Franklin expedition buried by Frederick Schwatka in 1879. Analysis suggests that the remains include those of the two men d…
Combined Geophysical Approach in a Complex Arctic Archaeological Environment
In 2014, we mapped the complex landscape of component Area 5 at LdFa‐1, a 3000‐year‐old Palaeoeskimo site located in the deep interior of southern Baffin Island, using a combined magnetic and electromagnetic approach to define the physical characteristics of any large‐ or small‐scale anthropogenic anomalies. Measurements were made using a GEM Systems Overhauser magnetometer‐gradiometer and Geonics EM31 instrument, and a survey configuration desig…
Manual Point Cloud Classification and Extraction for Hunter-Gatherer Feature Investigation
For archaeologists, the task of processing large terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)-derived point cloud data can be difficult, particularly when focusing on acquiring analytical and interpretive outcomes from the data. Using our TLS lidar data collected in 2013 from two compositionally different, low Arctic multi-component hunter-gatherer sites (LdFa-1 and LeDx-42), we demonstrate how a manual point cloud classification approach with open source so…
A human-centered GIS approach to modeling mobility on southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada
Southern Baffin Island has been occupied for several millennia, but its enormous size, coupled with scarcity of identified inland archaeological sites that can be confidently linked to coastal occupations, makes modeling ancient seasonal mobility across the region through traditional cost-surface least-cost pathway approaches impractical. We present a method that combines weighted multi-criteria cost surface analysis with a watershed function to …
Characterizing southern Baffin Island chert
Pre-Dorset Culture
This chapter summarizes our current understanding of the widespread and diverse Pre-Dorset culture, known from the central and eastern parts of the Canadian Arctic between 4500 and 2700 B.P. The Pre-Dorset were mobile foragers, moving across the landscape to exploit seasonally available land and sea mammals in different locales, although the extent of their movements varied considerably. The lithic component of their technology has been more inte…
Faces from the Franklin expedition? Craniofacial reconstructions of two members of the 1845 northwest passage expedition
In 2013, partial skeletal remains from three members of the 1845 John Franklin expedition were recovered from an archaeological site at Erebus Bay, King William Island, Nunavut. The remains included three crania, two of which were sufficiently intact to allow craniofacial reconstructions. Identifications are not proposed for either reconstruction; however, tentative identifications are being explored through DNA analyses currently underway that i…
Finding Franklin
History, Oral History and Archaeology
Historical and archaeological records are examined for three archaeological sites at Erebus Bay, King William Island, associated with the 1845 John Franklin expedition. Comparison of 19th century historical descriptions with archaeological data from sites NgLj-1 and NgLj-3 establishes that the identification of NgLj-1 as the site of the 1859 McClintock “boat place” is incorrect and that NgLj-3 is the actual site. An assessment of 19th century ora…
DNA analysis of human skeletal remains from the 1845 Franklin expedition
Applying GIS and statistical analysis to assess the correlation of human behaviour and ephemeral architectural features among Palaeo-Eskimo sites on Southern Baffin Island, Nunavut
Archaeology (30 obras) · Geography (29 obras) · Indigenous Studies and Ecology (23 obras) · Geology (22 obras) · Oceanography (18 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (17 obras) · History (17 obras) · Arctic (15 obras) · Geology (14 obras) · Oceanography (14 obras)