The Archaeology and Petrology of Coal Artifacts from a Thule Settlement on Axel Heiberg Island, Arctic Canada
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic1077Keywords:
Arctic Canada, Axel Heiberg Island, Thule culture, coal artifacts, coal petrology, archaeologyAbstract
Coal artifacts are occasionally excavated by archaeologists from Thule culture settlements (c. A.D. 1100-1700) in the Canadian Arctic and Alaska. This study examines two such artifacts from a Thule settlement located on the east coast of Axel Heiberg Island, Canada. One specimen has a petrographic composition typical of a cannel shale, in which sporinite is the most abundant organic constituent; the other is characterized by Botryococcus-alginite bodies typical of a boghead coal. Nearby exposures of Tertiary coal are generally woody and are not known to contain boghead layers or cannel shales. It is suggested that these artifacts may have their origin in Alaska, where boghead coal and cannel shales show strikingly similar petrographic features.
