THE CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE INNAANGANEQ/ CAPE YORK METEORITE: TECHNICAL REPORT 2015

During the fieldwork the archaeological site recordings were done at various levels of detail at the sites that once housed the meteoric fragments known as “Woman” and “Dog” (both at Saveruluup Itilliapalua), “Ahnighito” (eastern side of Meteorite Island), and “Savik 1” (at Saveqarfik).
Throughout the fieldwork the use of drone-based recordings was tested for the first time in Greenland. The results are very promising not only as a way to increase over-all precision of 2D site maps and increasing effectivity during fieldwork, but also as a way to produce 3D models that allow us to make quantitative analyses of features at the site. For example, the correspondance between on-ground calculations on the magnitude of the piles of hammer stones surrounding the find spot of “Woman” seem in precise correspondance with the calculations generated by drone measurements and software.
Geo-radar surveys were done at a site on the southern shore of Meteorite Island and on the eastern central part of the island. Previous fieldwork in 2012 (by Henning Haack) showed two well-defined magnetic anomalies that potentially could be evidence of two new large meteoric pieces. The work in 2014 demonstrated that magnetometers can be used to detect buried even deeply buried iron meteorites, and that the background noise is significantly less than the expected. The additional scannings done in 2014 indicate that the anomalies are more likely to be the result of terrestial rather than extraterrestial phenomenons.