The Early Paleoeskimo is one of three distinct periods of human occupation recognized by archaeologists in the eastern North American Arctic, the others being the Late Paleoeskimo and the Thule. Dates for these occupations vary according to specific geographic region and cultural historical perspective, but it is generally agreed that the first, the Early Paleoeskimo, spans roughly 4500 Before Present (BP) to 28-2300 BP.
The Early Paleoeskimo tradition
The Early Paleoeskimo tradition is known by a number of local, and sometimes spatially and temporally overlapping and related variants including the Independence I culture in the High Arctic and Greenland, Saqqaq culture in Greenland, Pre-Dorset in the High and Central Arctic and the Baffin/Ungava region and Groswater in Newfoundland and Labrador. More generally these are subsumed under a larger microlith tradition known as the Arctic Small Tool Tradition. Their ancestral origins are presumed to lie in Alaska, and ultimately Siberia and Eurasia.