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.

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 complex and varied material culture; and, from their Inuit descendants, a rich and detailed body of ethnographic information that can be drawn upon for analogy. With these advantages it is possible to identify a wide range of Thule items, especially miniature versions of implements, specifically associated with children. These can be studied to explore the roles of children in Thule society. Intriguingly, it is far more difficult to identify items associated with children of the Dorset culture, despite their material culture's being equally complex and their sites being often almost as well preserved. This chapter summarizes the results of research into childhood among the Thule and shows how the experience of childhood for Dorset children may have been somewhat different from that experienced by their Thule successors.

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 conclusive evidence for face-to-face contact between the people of these two cultures. Given evidence that the Thule actively salvaged harpoon heads and carvings from abandoned Dorset sites, I contend that salvage was the sole means of contact between these cultures and the means by which harpoon-head technology was transferred. This example points out the importance of salvage as a mode of culture contact and the weakness of studies that interpret changes in material culture solely in a culture-historical context.

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.

ABSTRACT. In 2013, a burial feature was excavated at NgLj-3, a Franklin expedition archaeological site on