· 1 Coal artifacts from Thule settlements in north-eastern Greenland Sutherland 1998). Boghead coal appears to have been particularly suitable for making delicate ornaments and carvings; however, the origin of the boghead coal used for some of the coal artifacts from Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island is still uncertain. The Thule culture came to Greenland from the northern part of the Bering Strait. The timing of the arrival is heavily debated and ranges from the early 12 th century A.D. to the late 13 th century A.D. (Mc- Cullough 1989; McGhee 2000; Schledermann & Mc- Cullough 2003; Friesen & Arnold 2008; Jensen 2009). They settled in the Thule area in northwest Green- land and later some Thule culture groups migrated eastwards to north-eastern Greenland while others moved southward along the west coast of Greenland (Fig. 1). The migration into north-eastern Greenland went along the north coast and south into J.P. Koch Fjord and eastwards through Wandel Dal and Mid- sommersøer in southern Peary Land (Fig. 2; Grønnow & Jensen 2003). Migration must have been fast since there are no winter houses known between Hall Land (ca. 81°N/60°W) and Amdrup Land (Fig. 2), where the northernmost winter houses on the northeast coast of Coal petrographic techniques have over the past years successfully been used to identify the provenance of coal artifacts excavated by archaeologists. Teichmüller (1992) studied coal ornaments from Roman and Celtic grave sites and was able to trace some of the materials to sources in southern Germany, Bohemia and the Czech Republic. Smith (1996, 1997) studied coal relics collected from Roman sites in Britain and found that nearly all the specimens originated from the nearest outcrops of coal seams. In the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and Greenland, coal artifacts are occasionally found in excavated winter house ruins from the Thule culture period (McCullough 1989; Steffian 1992; Kalkreuth et al. 1993), representing an early phase of Inuit occupation. Pre- vious examinations of coal artifacts from the Bache Peninsula region of eastern Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island in Arctic Canada, including the analysis of beads and a possible labret (lip piercing piece), showed that the artifacts consisted of a variety of coal and organic-rich shale types (lignite, boghead coal, cannel shale), some of which could be traced to nearby outcrops (Kalkreuth et al. 1993; Kalkreuth & The petrology and provenance of coal artifacts from Thule settlements in north-eastern Greenland WOLFGANG KALKREUTH, CLAUS ANDREASEN, HENRIK I. PETERSEN & LARS STEMMERIK Kalkreuth, W., Andreasen, C., Petersen, H.I. & Stemmerik, L., 2012. The petrology and provenance of coal artifacts from Thule settlements in north-eastern Greenland © 2012 by Bulletin of the Geologi- cal Society of Denmark, Vol. 60, pp. 1–13. ISSN 0011–6297. (www.2dgf.dk/publikationer/bulletin) https://doi.org/10.37570/bgsd-2012-60-01 Coal petrographic techniques have been used to trace the origin of coal used to produce artifacts by the Thule people in north-eastern Greenland. The coal artifacts were collected from the north-east coast settlements between 76°55'–80°18'N and date back to the 15 th century A.D. The petrographic data suggest that they have a common source, the Middle Jurassic coals outcropping south of 75°15' in north-eastern Greenland. It is thus evident that the Thule people used local material rather than bringing the coal from the known “mines” in Arctic Canada. It also implies that contemporaneous Thule people groups along the east coast of Greenland were in contact and traded. Keywords: coal artifacts, coal petrology, Thule Culture, north-eastern Greenland Wolfgang Kalkreuth [wolfgang.kalkreuth@ufrgs.br], Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Claus Andreasen [claus.andreasen47@gmail.com], Greenland National Museum and Archives, P.O. Box 145, DK-3900 Nuuk, Greenland. Henrik I. Petersen [hip@geus.dk], Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Lars Stemmerik [Lars.Stemmerik@snm. ku.dk], Department of Geography and Geology, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 10, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark (Presently Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, DK-1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark). Received 3 May 2010 Accepted in revised form 7 December 2011 Published online 24 February 2012