Thule people

The Thule (US: /ˈθuːli/, /ˈtuːli/, UK: /ˈθjuːli/) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by the year 1000 and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the earlier Dorset culture that had previously inhabited the region. The appellation "Thule" originates from the location of Thule (relocated and renamed Qaanaaq in 1953) in northwest Greenland, facing Canada, where the archaeological remains of the people were first found at Comer's Midden.

Evidence supports the idea that the Thule (and, to a lesser degree, the Dorset) were in contact with the Vikings, who had reached the shores of Canada in the 11th century as part of Norse colonization of North America. In Viking sources, these peoples are called the Skrælingjar.

Some Thule migrated southward, in the "Second Expansion" or "Second Phase". By the 13th or 14th century, the Thule had occupied an area inhabited until then by the Central Inuit, and by the 15th century, the Thule had replaced the Dorset.

Intensified contacts with Europeans began in the 18th century. Compounded by the already disruptive effects of the "Little Ice Age" (1650–1850), the Thule communities broke apart, and the people were henceforward known as the Eskimo, and later, Inuit.