ABSTRACT
Mortality profiles of bowhead whales at prehistoric Thule Eskimo villages (c. 1000–400 bp) in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are shown to closely track their presumed migration route. Specifically, yearling sizes at an individual site correspond very closely to that site’s location on the annual bowhead migration route. Population size, whaling success, and bowhead size selection at individual villages or village clusters were all apparently dependent to a considerable extent on the position along the migration route, with ‘early’ intercept positions being the most advantageous.
