CHARACTERIZATION OF CHERT ARTIFACTS AND TWO NEWLY IDENTIFIED CHERT QUARRIES ON SOUTHERN BAFFIN ISLAND R. E. TEN BRUGGENCATE ,  , S. B. MILNE ,  , M. FAYEK  , R. W. PARK  AND D. R. STENTON   Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba,  Fletcher Argue Building,  Chancellor Circle, Winnipeg RT N, Canada  Centre for Earth Observation Science, University of Manitoba,  Wallace Building,  Dysart Rd., Winnipeg RT N, Canada  Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba,  Wallace Building,  Dysart Road, Winnipeg RT N, Canada  Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo,  University Avenue West, ON NL G, Canada Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) trace element analysis was used to characterize raw chert from one secondary (LeDx-) and two primary (LbDt- and LdDx-) sources on southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. Raw chert trace element data are compared to ICP-MS trace element data for chert artifacts from a nearby Palaeo-Eskimo archaeological site (LeDx-). Geochemical consistencies identified among the ana- lyzed samples support the inference that Palaeo-Eskimo toolmakers at LeDx- exploited LdDx- and LbDt- as chert source locations. KEYWORDS: Chert, Geochemistry, Provenance, Arctic, Palaeo-Eskimo INTRODUCTION This paper presents preliminary results from a multiyear project investigating Palaeo-Eskimo mobility and lithic technology on southern Baffin Island. One goal of this research is to geochemi- cally characterize chert source locations (i.e., out- crops and quarries) and artifacts (i.e., tools and debitage) and use provenance data as behavioral proxies to reconstruct Palaeo-Eskimo seasonal land use patterns between coastal and inland sites on southern Baffin Island. Chert tools and debitage dominate artifact assemblages at Palaeo-Eskimo sites throughout the eastern Arctic. However, comparatively little is known about how and from where this toolstone was acquired (e.g., Anstey and Renouf ; Gramly ; Lazenby ; Loring ; Milne ; Milne et al. ; Odess :). On southern Baffin Island, archaeological survey (Milne , ; Milne et al. , , ; Stenton ), geological mapping (de Kemp et al. ; Sanford and Grant ), and local oral histories (Milne , ; Stenton and Park ) all indicate that the most reliable location to acquire chert toolstone is in the island’s interior near three large lakes: Mingo, Nettilling, and Amad- juak (Figure ). Palaeo-Eskimo is a term archaeologists use to collectively refer to people who inhabited the Arctic prior to the arrival of the Thule-Inuit c.  AD. In the eastern Canadian Arctic, including southern Baffin Island, the Palaeo-Eskimo period is divided into two temporally separate, yet cultu- rally connected phases, Pre-Dorset and Dorset (Maxwell ; Milne and Park ; Park ). The Pre-Dorset (– BC) crossed the Chukchi Sea from Asia to present-day Alaska during the relatively warm subboreal period, and rapidly expanded to occupy the Arctic from Alaska to Greenland within – years (Maxwell :; Milne and Park ). Site distributions indicate that the Pre-Dorset season- ally exploited both marine and terrestrial food resources (e.g., Bielawski ; Maxwell ; © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd  DOI: ./Y. Lithic Technology , Vol.  No. , –