Peter C Dawson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3607396 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter C Dawson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter C |
| FAMILY NAME | Dawson |
| SIGNATURE | DAWSON P C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Calgary |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5090-6391 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 96 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Rethinking the commemoration of Indian Residential Schools through digital heritage
This paper examines the use of digital twins – highly accurate virtual models of physical structures created through terrestrial LiDAR scanning – to support the commemoration of heritage sites with difficult histories. In Canada, former Indian Residential School (IRS) buildings are increasingly at risk of loss due to their association with 160 years of government policies aimed at the forced assimilation and colonisation of Indigenous peoples. De…
A method for detecting and monitoring changes to the Okotoks Erratic – “Big Rock” provincial historic site
Purpose Designing and implementing effective strategies for managing heritage resources throughout the world has become critically important as the impacts of climate change and human-caused destruction are increasingly felt. Of particular importance is the ability to identify and track fast- and slow-moving processes associated with weathering, erosion and the movement or removal of heritage objects by natural and human agents. In this paper, th…
Thirty Days of Night: The Role of Light and Shadow in Inuit Architecture, North of the Arctic Circle
The extended periods of daylight and darkness that characterize Arctic and Antarctic regions make them unique places on earth. At a location 250km north of the Arctic Circle, for example, polar night can last for upwards of 30 days during the winter months. These periods of darkness become increasingly longer as one moves to higher latitudes. It is therefore surprising that comparatively little research has explored how historic Inuit societies a…
Archaeological Investigations at the Ikirahak Site Raise Questions Concerning Taltheilei Land Use in Southern Nunavut
We report a new Taltheilei site-type found off the west coast of Hudson Bay in southern Nunavut. The Taltheilei is an archaeological culture that existed in the Barrenlands of the central Canadian Subarctic between 2600 and 300 years ago. Their land use strategies were tethered to the seasonal migrations of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds throughout tundra and forest landscapes. Tundra-based sites are typically interpreted as short-live…
Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller: Using Virtual Tours to Access Remote Heritage Sites of Inuit Cultural Knowledge
The use of panoramic images to transport viewers to remote geographic locations can be traced back to the panorama theatres of nineteenth-century Victorian London. More recently, Google's World Wonders Project has utilized 360-degree panospheres to capture some of the world's most famous heritage sites. Using arrows that demarcate a defined path of movement, users can virtually tour these sites by "jumping" from one panosphere to the next. Arvia'…
From Science to Survival: Using Virtual Exhibits to Communicate the Significance of Polar Heritage Sites in the Canadian Arctic
Many of Canada’s non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experien…
Multi-element and biomolecular analyses of soils as a means of sustainable site structure research on hunter–gatherer sites: A case study from the Canadian Arctic
Herschel Island Qikiqtaryuk: A Natural and Cultural History of Yukon’s Arctic Island, edited by Christopher R. Burn
Application of 3D Laser Scanning to the Preservation of Fort Conger, a Historic Polar Research Base on Northern Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada
Fort Conger, located in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, is a historic landmark of national and international significance. The site is associated with many important Arctic expeditions, including the ill-fated Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of the First International Polar Year and Robert Peary’s attempts to claim the North Pole. Although situated in one of the most remote locations on earth, Fort Conger is currently at risk because o…
Fort Conger: A Site of Arctic History in the 21st Century
Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900–10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Pe…
Accessing Hunter-Gatherer site structures using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: Applications at a Taltheilei settlement in the Canadian Sub-Arctic
Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico: A Space Syntax Approach
It is held that the study of complex societies can effectively focus on the human interactions that define communities. Given the operational primacy of architectural survey in archaeological investigations, with some prominent exceptions, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified using these data sets. This article weds a modified version of Yaeger and Canuto's (2000) ‘int…
Archaeological magnetometry in an Arctic setting: A case study from Maguse Lake, Nunavut
Breaking the fourth wall: 3D virtual worlds as tools for knowledge repatriation in archaeology
Interactive 3-dimensional worlds and computer modeling can be used to excite interest in archaeology among indigenous groups such as the Inuit of the North American Arctic and Greenland. Using two case studies - a recently completed exhibition for the Virtual Museum of Canada on Thule Inuit whalebone houses and an interactive virtual world structured around the Siglit-Inuvialuit sod house - we explore how digital replicas might be used in the rep…
Using finite element methods to analyze ancient architecture: An example from the North American Arctic
Unfriendly Architecture: Using Observations of Inuit Spatial Behavior to Design Culturally Sustaining Houses in Arctic Canada
In the decades following the Second World War, Inuit of the Canadian Arctic were introduced to Euro-Canadian architecture in communities that were scattered throughout the North. These houses, and the settlements in which they were situated, were spatially designed around Euro-Canadian concepts of family, community, economics and administrative control. Direct observations of space use by Inuit families were carried out in a remote Canadian Arcti…
Seeing like an Inuit family: The relationship between house form and culture in northern Canada
In his classic essay Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, Marcel Mauss argued that a strong relationship exists between the spatial organisation of traditional Inuit house forms and the social morphology of the families they shelter. These observations anticipate later works in anthropology that examine how cultural processes are reflected in, and sustained by, the built environment. Such ideas are important when considering the effects of post-war…
Simulating the behaviour of light inside Arctic dwellings: Implications for Assessing the Role of Vision in Task Performance
Visibility studies in archaeology have been criticized because they tend to emphasize the importance of vision over other senses. The burgeoning field of sensory anthropology argues that the relative significance of visual, olfactory, acoustic and haptic (touch) senses varies cross-culturally, and is a function of how human beings interact with their particular environments. The Canadian Arctic is a unique sensory environment because prolonged pe…
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos. Ernest S. Burch Jr. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005
Using Computer Modelling and Virtual Reality to Explore the Ideological Dimensions of Thule Whalebone Architecture in Arctic Canada
Arctic archaeologists have long suspected that the whalebones used to construct semi-subterranean winter houses by Thule culture peoples were symbolically resonant. These assumptions are based on observations of the non-utilitarian use of jaw bones and crania in Thule house ruins, and ethnographic descriptions of architectural symbolism relating to the whale hunt in Historic Alaskan Inupiat houses. In this paper, we use a 3-dimensional computer r…
A Three-Dimensional Model of a Thule Inuit Whale Bone House
The semi-subterranean whale bone house is one of the most distinctive features of Thule Inuit culture in the Canadian Arctic (A.D. 1000–1600). An understanding of how these remarkable dwellings were designed and built has been hindered by measurement and recording techniques restricted to two dimensions. Determining how the unusual shapes and sizes of whale bone elements would have influenced the strength of the roof frame and the volume of the h…
Reconstructing traditional Inuit house forms using three-dimensional interactive computer modelling
Virtual heritage environments provide researchers and the general public with a tool for exploring archaeological data in a dynamic and interactive fashion. This paper discusses recent attempts by the authors to construct a prototype three-dimensional interactive computer model of an Inuvialuit sod house based on archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic data from the outer Mackenzie Delta area in Arctic Canada. Such computer models have the…
Eskimo Architecture: Dwelling and Structure in the Early Historic Period
Space syntax analysis of Central Inuit snow houses
Interpreting Variability in Thule Inuit Architecture: A Case Study from the Canadian High Arctic
The semisubterranean whale-bone house is one of the most recognizable aspects of Thule Inuit culture. Following their arrival in the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, Thule peoples built these impressive and often enigmatic dwellings for occupation during the long winter months. Variability in the architectural properties of semisubterranean house forms has traditionally been used by archaeologists to infer cultural and historical re…
Simulating the behaviour of light inside Arctic dwellings: Implications for Assessing the Role of Vision in Task Performance
Visibility studies in archaeology have been criticized because they tend to emphasize the importance of vision over other senses. The burgeoning field of sensory anthropology argues that the relative significance of visual, olfactory, acoustic and haptic (touch) senses varies cross-culturally, and is a function of how human beings interact with their particular environments. The Canadian Arctic is a unique sensory environment because prolonged pe…
Seeing like an Inuit family: The relationship between house form and culture in northern Canada
In his classic essay Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, Marcel Mauss argued that a strong relationship exists between the spatial organisation of traditional Inuit house forms and the social morphology of the families they shelter. These observations anticipate later works in anthropology that examine how cultural processes are reflected in, and sustained by, the built environment. Such ideas are important when considering the effects of post-war…
Breaking the fourth wall: 3D virtual worlds as tools for knowledge repatriation in archaeology
Interactive 3-dimensional worlds and computer modeling can be used to excite interest in archaeology among indigenous groups such as the Inuit of the North American Arctic and Greenland. Using two case studies - a recently completed exhibition for the Virtual Museum of Canada on Thule Inuit whalebone houses and an interactive virtual world structured around the Siglit-Inuvialuit sod house - we explore how digital replicas might be used in the rep…
Archaeological magnetometry in an Arctic setting: A case study from Maguse Lake, Nunavut
Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico: A Space Syntax Approach
It is held that the study of complex societies can effectively focus on the human interactions that define communities. Given the operational primacy of architectural survey in archaeological investigations, with some prominent exceptions, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified using these data sets. This article weds a modified version of Yaeger and Canuto's (2000) ‘int…
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos. Ernest S. Burch Jr. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005
Unfriendly Architecture: Using Observations of Inuit Spatial Behavior to Design Culturally Sustaining Houses in Arctic Canada
In the decades following the Second World War, Inuit of the Canadian Arctic were introduced to Euro-Canadian architecture in communities that were scattered throughout the North. These houses, and the settlements in which they were situated, were spatially designed around Euro-Canadian concepts of family, community, economics and administrative control. Direct observations of space use by Inuit families were carried out in a remote Canadian Arcti…
Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller: Using Virtual Tours to Access Remote Heritage Sites of Inuit Cultural Knowledge
The use of panoramic images to transport viewers to remote geographic locations can be traced back to the panorama theatres of nineteenth-century Victorian London. More recently, Google's World Wonders Project has utilized 360-degree panospheres to capture some of the world's most famous heritage sites. Using arrows that demarcate a defined path of movement, users can virtually tour these sites by "jumping" from one panosphere to the next. Arvia'…
Multi-element and biomolecular analyses of soils as a means of sustainable site structure research on hunter–gatherer sites: A case study from the Canadian Arctic
Accessing Hunter-Gatherer site structures using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: Applications at a Taltheilei settlement in the Canadian Sub-Arctic
Interpreting Variability in Thule Inuit Architecture: A Case Study from the Canadian High Arctic
The semisubterranean whale-bone house is one of the most recognizable aspects of Thule Inuit culture. Following their arrival in the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, Thule peoples built these impressive and often enigmatic dwellings for occupation during the long winter months. Variability in the architectural properties of semisubterranean house forms has traditionally been used by archaeologists to infer cultural and historical re…
From Science to Survival: Using Virtual Exhibits to Communicate the Significance of Polar Heritage Sites in the Canadian Arctic
Many of Canada’s non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experien…
Using finite element methods to analyze ancient architecture: An example from the North American Arctic
A Three-Dimensional Model of a Thule Inuit Whale Bone House
The semi-subterranean whale bone house is one of the most distinctive features of Thule Inuit culture in the Canadian Arctic (A.D. 1000–1600). An understanding of how these remarkable dwellings were designed and built has been hindered by measurement and recording techniques restricted to two dimensions. Determining how the unusual shapes and sizes of whale bone elements would have influenced the strength of the roof frame and the volume of the h…
Using Computer Modelling and Virtual Reality to Explore the Ideological Dimensions of Thule Whalebone Architecture in Arctic Canada
Arctic archaeologists have long suspected that the whalebones used to construct semi-subterranean winter houses by Thule culture peoples were symbolically resonant. These assumptions are based on observations of the non-utilitarian use of jaw bones and crania in Thule house ruins, and ethnographic descriptions of architectural symbolism relating to the whale hunt in Historic Alaskan Inupiat houses. In this paper, we use a 3-dimensional computer r…
"Unsympathetic Users": An Ethnoarchaeological Examination of Inuit Responses to the Changing Nature of the Built Environment
Recent trends in modern architectural theory stress the dynamic relationship that exists between culture and the built environment. Such theories hold that because different cultures are characterized by distinctive types of economic, social, and ideological relationships, they require different forms of spatial order to sustain them. Through the adoption of such a perspective, this paper examines the effects of Euro-Canadian prefabricated housin…
Bare Poles: Building Designs for High Latitudes, by Harold Strub
Interpreting Variability in Thule Inuit Architecture: A Case Study from the Canadian High Arctic
The semisubterranean whale-bone house is one of the most recognizable aspects of Thule Inuit culture. Following their arrival in the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, Thule peoples built these impressive and often enigmatic dwellings for occupation during the long winter months. Variability in the architectural properties of semisubterranean house forms has traditionally been used by archaeologists to infer cultural and historical re…
Space syntax analysis of Central Inuit snow houses
Reconstructing traditional Inuit house forms using three-dimensional interactive computer modelling
Virtual heritage environments provide researchers and the general public with a tool for exploring archaeological data in a dynamic and interactive fashion. This paper discusses recent attempts by the authors to construct a prototype three-dimensional interactive computer model of an Inuvialuit sod house based on archaeological, ethnohistoric and ethnographic data from the outer Mackenzie Delta area in Arctic Canada. Such computer models have the…
Eskimo Architecture: Dwelling and Structure in the Early Historic Period
Using Computer Modelling and Virtual Reality to Explore the Ideological Dimensions of Thule Whalebone Architecture in Arctic Canada
Arctic archaeologists have long suspected that the whalebones used to construct semi-subterranean winter houses by Thule culture peoples were symbolically resonant. These assumptions are based on observations of the non-utilitarian use of jaw bones and crania in Thule house ruins, and ethnographic descriptions of architectural symbolism relating to the whale hunt in Historic Alaskan Inupiat houses. In this paper, we use a 3-dimensional computer r…
A Three-Dimensional Model of a Thule Inuit Whale Bone House
The semi-subterranean whale bone house is one of the most distinctive features of Thule Inuit culture in the Canadian Arctic (A.D. 1000–1600). An understanding of how these remarkable dwellings were designed and built has been hindered by measurement and recording techniques restricted to two dimensions. Determining how the unusual shapes and sizes of whale bone elements would have influenced the strength of the roof frame and the volume of the h…
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos
Alliance and Conflict: The World System of the Iñupiaq Eskimos. Ernest S. Burch Jr. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005
Simulating the behaviour of light inside Arctic dwellings: Implications for Assessing the Role of Vision in Task Performance
Visibility studies in archaeology have been criticized because they tend to emphasize the importance of vision over other senses. The burgeoning field of sensory anthropology argues that the relative significance of visual, olfactory, acoustic and haptic (touch) senses varies cross-culturally, and is a function of how human beings interact with their particular environments. The Canadian Arctic is a unique sensory environment because prolonged pe…
Unfriendly Architecture: Using Observations of Inuit Spatial Behavior to Design Culturally Sustaining Houses in Arctic Canada
In the decades following the Second World War, Inuit of the Canadian Arctic were introduced to Euro-Canadian architecture in communities that were scattered throughout the North. These houses, and the settlements in which they were situated, were spatially designed around Euro-Canadian concepts of family, community, economics and administrative control. Direct observations of space use by Inuit families were carried out in a remote Canadian Arcti…
Seeing like an Inuit family: The relationship between house form and culture in northern Canada
In his classic essay Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, Marcel Mauss argued that a strong relationship exists between the spatial organisation of traditional Inuit house forms and the social morphology of the families they shelter. These observations anticipate later works in anthropology that examine how cultural processes are reflected in, and sustained by, the built environment. Such ideas are important when considering the effects of post-war…
Using finite element methods to analyze ancient architecture: An example from the North American Arctic
Archaeological magnetometry in an Arctic setting: A case study from Maguse Lake, Nunavut
Breaking the fourth wall: 3D virtual worlds as tools for knowledge repatriation in archaeology
Interactive 3-dimensional worlds and computer modeling can be used to excite interest in archaeology among indigenous groups such as the Inuit of the North American Arctic and Greenland. Using two case studies - a recently completed exhibition for the Virtual Museum of Canada on Thule Inuit whalebone houses and an interactive virtual world structured around the Siglit-Inuvialuit sod house - we explore how digital replicas might be used in the rep…
Accessing Hunter-Gatherer site structures using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: Applications at a Taltheilei settlement in the Canadian Sub-Arctic
Civic and Household Community Relationships at Teotihuacan, Mexico: A Space Syntax Approach
It is held that the study of complex societies can effectively focus on the human interactions that define communities. Given the operational primacy of architectural survey in archaeological investigations, with some prominent exceptions, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified using these data sets. This article weds a modified version of Yaeger and Canuto's (2000) ‘int…
Application of 3D Laser Scanning to the Preservation of Fort Conger, a Historic Polar Research Base on Northern Ellesmere Island, Arctic Canada
Fort Conger, located in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, is a historic landmark of national and international significance. The site is associated with many important Arctic expeditions, including the ill-fated Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of the First International Polar Year and Robert Peary’s attempts to claim the North Pole. Although situated in one of the most remote locations on earth, Fort Conger is currently at risk because o…
Fort Conger: A Site of Arctic History in the 21st Century
Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900–10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Pe…
Herschel Island Qikiqtaryuk: A Natural and Cultural History of Yukon’s Arctic Island, edited by Christopher R. Burn
Multi-element and biomolecular analyses of soils as a means of sustainable site structure research on hunter–gatherer sites: A case study from the Canadian Arctic
From Science to Survival: Using Virtual Exhibits to Communicate the Significance of Polar Heritage Sites in the Canadian Arctic
Many of Canada’s non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experien…
Archaeological Investigations at the Ikirahak Site Raise Questions Concerning Taltheilei Land Use in Southern Nunavut
We report a new Taltheilei site-type found off the west coast of Hudson Bay in southern Nunavut. The Taltheilei is an archaeological culture that existed in the Barrenlands of the central Canadian Subarctic between 2600 and 300 years ago. Their land use strategies were tethered to the seasonal migrations of the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq caribou herds throughout tundra and forest landscapes. Tundra-based sites are typically interpreted as short-live…
Some Account of an Extraordinary Traveller: Using Virtual Tours to Access Remote Heritage Sites of Inuit Cultural Knowledge
The use of panoramic images to transport viewers to remote geographic locations can be traced back to the panorama theatres of nineteenth-century Victorian London. More recently, Google's World Wonders Project has utilized 360-degree panospheres to capture some of the world's most famous heritage sites. Using arrows that demarcate a defined path of movement, users can virtually tour these sites by "jumping" from one panosphere to the next. Arvia'…
Thirty Days of Night: The Role of Light and Shadow in Inuit Architecture, North of the Arctic Circle
The extended periods of daylight and darkness that characterize Arctic and Antarctic regions make them unique places on earth. At a location 250km north of the Arctic Circle, for example, polar night can last for upwards of 30 days during the winter months. These periods of darkness become increasingly longer as one moves to higher latitudes. It is therefore surprising that comparatively little research has explored how historic Inuit societies a…
Geography (25 works) · Archaeology (22 works) · Arctic (19 works) · Geology (17 works) · Indigenous Studies and Ecology (13 works) · Oceanography (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Ecology (11 works) · The arctic (11 works) · History (10 works)