ABSTRACT
Temperatures are currently rising in Greenland and Global Climate Models predict an increase in the Arctic mean annual air temperature of between 2.5 to 7.5° C by the end of the twenty-fi rst century (Chapman and Walsh, 2007). Even a small increase in the air temperature may have a great infl uence on the thermal state of permafrost (Romanovsky et al., 2007; Hollesen et al., 2011a) and hence the future preservation of the archaeological kitchen middens may be threatened. One of the sites that are at risk is the Qajaa kitchen midden at the Ilulissat Ice Fjord in western Greenland. With 250 cm of organic archaeological layers embedded in the permafrost, this is considered the best-preserved site for Saqqaq and Dorset culture in all of Greenland. The site was last subject to investigations in 1982 and since then the mean annual air temperature has increased by more than 2° C (Carstensen and Jørgensen, 2011). The question is whether the state of preservation has changed during the last twenty-eight years and whether future climatic changes may cause the Qajaa kitchen midden to thaw and decay.
