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Thule People




The Thule subsisted both on marine and terrestrial Animal s. They replaced the Dorset Culture by the early fifteenth century.

The Thule winter settlements usually had one to four houses with around ten people. Some major settlements may have had more than a dozen houses, although not all were inhabited at the same time by the fifty residents. Their houses were made of Whale Bone s from summer hunts. Other structures include kill sites, Cache s, and Tent encampments.

Some Thule migrated southward, in the "Second Expansion" or "Second Phase". By the thirteenth or fourteenth century, the Thule had occupied an area currently inhabited by Central Eskimo . There is good evidence to support the idea that the Thule (and the Dorset, but to a lesser degree) were in contact with the Vikings, who touched the banks of what is now modern Canada in roughly 1000 AD. However, intensified contacts with Europe ans began in the 18th century and, compounded by the already disruptive effects of the " Little Ice Age " (1650-1850), the Thule communities broke apart and the people were henceforward known as the Eskimo and, later, Inuit.


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