Arctic peoples have been sustainably hunt-
ing seals for the animals’ skin and meat for
hundreds of years.
T
he Inuit call the earliest Arctic peoples
Tuniit
, or “the first peo-
ples.” Many
ANTHROPOLOGISTS
believe the Tuniit reached North
America by boat from
SIBERIA
around 3000
b
.
c
. Over time, they
spread eastward across much of northern Alaska and northern Canada and
into Greenland. Around
a
.
d
. 1200, the Tuniit encountered newcomers: the
Inuit. Although the Inuit had initially remained along the Alaskan coast, they
now pushed across the continent. Interactions between the Tuniit and Inuit
may have led to conflict in some cases. In others, the two cultures may have
melded through intermarriage. Soon, the Inuit culture had largely replaced
that of the Tuniit.
Although related by language and culture, the Inuit did not consider
themselves a single tribe. Anthropologists who study the Inuit divide them
into three cultural groups, based on location: the Alaska Inuit (which includes
the Inuit of Siberia), the Central Inuit of Canada, and the Greenland Inuit.
Each group can be further divided into numerous smaller groups, or bands,
based on geography,
DIALECT
, and culture. The various bands were spread
3,200 miles (5,150 km) across Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, and
each spoke its own dialect of the Inuktitut language. However, the dialects
9
•
I
N
U
I
T
•
Moving and Settling
P E O P L E S
of
N O R T H A M E R I C A
