Dr. Asta Mønsted

And there probably is, because there is also something about, might there be stories that you tell the outsiders that come and ask you, if the priest come and ask you, hey, you

What stories do you believe in, right?

Do you give it all away or do you hold some of the stories back?

And that is difficult for us to answer, of course.

But even if some of the stories have been held back, it is still a rich source for us today.

Because what we can do as archaeologists is sort of consult, but even do more than just consulting these oral stories.

We can also see how archaeology can be challenged by those stories.

So what I tried to do in my PhD thesis, for example, was to learn from the oral history and take the stories as seriously as possible.

And what I learned was when we go to archaeology,

a site.

We see a beach, we observe the beach, and we often think of it as the natural harbor.

That is the entryway from the sea or the sea ice in the wintertime to a settlement, either by boat or kayak or by your dog sledge.

What I didn't know, but what I figured out or what I learned from the oral stories was that

the beach could also be an ally.

So if there was a murderous person out there who wanted to harm you or someone who had sent a tubilak, so an evil spirit to harm you, you could go down to that beach right in front of your settlement and pour out some blood or some urine.

You could recite a spell to protect yourself.

And then when that dupilak would arrive to the beach, the beach would rise up and become large stones and rocks that would crush that hurtful creature, right?

And it's not for me to say, no, that never happened, because it tells me a lot about the way of thinking about the world that I cannot excavate, but I know it through the sources of the old stories.

Certainly.

But we also need to remember that