Re: Paleo-eskimo were building boats in Greenland 4000 years ago.

From: Eric Stevens (eric.stevens_at_sum.co.nz)
Date: 07/27/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 09:30:42 +1200

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 22:21:32 +0200, Erik Hammerstad
<egeha.is.all.you.need@start.no> wrote:

>Erik Hammerstad wrote:
>
>> Eric Stevens wrote:
>>
>>> I confess.
>>>
>>> I was wrong.
>>>
>>> Floyd L. Davidson and now Martyn Harrison are quite right..
>>>
>>> The Inuit had moved into Greenland more than 4000 years ago.
>>> One of the things they were doing was building boats.
>>>
>>
>>
>> The above is 100% correct, just replace Inuit with Paleo-eskimo and
>> neither Seppo nor Eric nor Inger can dispute it. Furthermore _driftwood_
>> was used for the boat skeletons and also tools such as knife and harpoon
>> shafts. See pp 90-96 in http://www.dpc.dk/PolarPubs/MoG/Dokumenter/MS30.pdf
>
>And seeing that my Norwegian encyclopedia includes the
>paleo-eskimo under its Inuit entry and only has a very short text
>under the Eskimo entry, I wouldn't even require that substitution
>to fully accept Eric's repentance.

I will fully repent if you can show that I am wrong to distinguish the
(modern) inuit of Greenland from the Late Dorset, the early Dorset,
the Saqqaq, the Independence I and II, the Thule and no doubt a host
of others who preceded them. As I have already pointed out I
originally wrote
"... whoever was building boats in Greenland 4000 years ago, it
wasn't the inuit".

In fact, I have written to someone in Denmark/Greenland who should
know but unfortunately he is away and I have not yet received an
answer.

I also wonder if the usage is tied to the language of the speaker.

Eric Stevens

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