The Cultural Landscapes of Port au Choix

Newfoundland lies at the intersection of arctic and more temperate regions and, commensurate with this geography, populations of two Amerindian and two Paleoeskimo cultural traditions occupied Port au Choix, in northern Newfoundland, Canada, for centuries and millennia. Over the past two decades The Port au Choix Archaeology Project has sought a comparative understanding of how these different cultures, each with their particular origin and historical trajectory, adapted to the changing physical and social environments, impacted their physical surroundings, and created cultural landscapes. This volume brings together the research of Renouf, her colleagues and her students who together employ multiple perspectives and methods to provide a detailed reconstruction and understanding of the long-term history of Port au Choix. Although geographically focussed on a northern coastal area, this volume has wider implications for understanding archaeological landscapes, human-environment interactions and hunter-gatherer societies.

Dr. Priscilla Renouf, Canada Research Chair of North Atlantic Archaeology, has conducted research in Labrador, Newfoundland, Arctic Norway and Greenland. For the past several years her research has been situated in Port au Choix, northwestern Newfoundland, where she is reconstructing 5,500 years of human adaptation to a changing environment. Dr. Renouf co-founded an international research group, called LINK, which consists of a dozen archaeologists working in North Atlantic areas: Labrador, Greenland, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway. Their purpose is to integrate social and natural science research to address questions of how past human societies in the North Atlantic reacted to long- and short-term climate fluctuations. Dr. Renouf is committed to communicating the results of her research to the public as well as the academic community. She continues to achieve this through videos, exhibits, publications and public presentations.