

Study Offers Clues to Arctic Mystery: Paleo-Eskimos’ Abrupt Extinction - dnetesn
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/science/study-offers-clues-to-arctic-mystery-paleo-eskimos-abrupt-extinction.html?ref=science

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canjobear
There's evidence that some of the Paleo-Eskimos/Dorset people survived until
1903:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadlermiut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadlermiut)

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hkarthik
From Wikipedia:

 _However, as with many North American aboriginals, the Sadlermiut were often
susceptible to Western diseases. By 1896, there were only 70 of them
remaining. Then, in the fall of 1902, the British trading /whaling vessel
named the Active had made a stop at Cape Low, Southampton Island. It is said
that some of the Sadlermiut caught a disease, possibly an influenza, typhoid
or typhus, from a sick sailor aboard the Active, which then spread to the
entire community. By winter 1902-03, the entire Sadlermiut population had died
as a result._

It's quite possible that due to their isolation and subsequent contact with
Europeans and Thule, the main population of Dorsets died out in the same way.

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dmix
They seem to offer clues of their isolated existence and bloodline but not
their extinction. Or am I missing something?

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beloch
It verifies that there was an extinction rather than assimilation, although
this was already the conclusion of archaeologists based on other data. The
physical remains of the Dorset culture are totally distinct form those of the
Thule. Thule oral traditions tell of encounters with the Dorset during their
Eastwards expansion. The Dorset were in contact with viking populations in
Greenland, whose accounts can be interpreted as showing the rapid replacement
of the Dorset by the Thule. Finally, some small, isolated Dorset populations
may have survived until later European contact, although they soon died out as
well.

The Thule expansion into North America is thought to have coincided with a
change in climate, so it's possible the shift in climate caused the collapse
of the Dorset. It's also possible that contact with either the Thule or
vikings passed on diseases that could have decimated the Dorset. However, the
remarkably close timing of the replacement does strongly support the
hypothesis that the Thule themselves were the cause of the Dorset collapse.

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eruditely
Heavily implied the Eskimo's killed the Dorset. Just in case no one is paying
attention.

