The first people in the Arctic
Settling the empty, frozen top of the world
See it on the timeline →In depth
The High Arctic is the land north of the tree line, where winter lasts eight months and nothing edible grows. The Arctic Small Tool tradition reached Greenland around 2500 BCE and represents the last great settlement of uninhabited land in the northern hemisphere. Their descendants, the Dorset, endured three thousand years before vanishing almost completely around 1300 CE — genetic studies show they were not absorbed into the Thule culture that displaced them but died out as a distinct population.
For children
While people had lived further south in the Americas for over ten thousand years, the High Arctic was still empty. Then a people moved east from Alaska with tiny, precise stone tools, and managed to live where almost nothing grows.
Sources
This event has no source references yet. Do you know where it is well attested — a book, an article, a reference work? We would very much like to hear from you.
Help us with sourcesReport a correction
Found something that does not hold? Tell us — sources help, but are not required.
Report a correctionPart of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org ·