James A. Tuck, (June 28, 1940 – May 10, 2019) was an American-born archaeologist whose work as a faculty member of the Memorial University of Newfoundland was focused on the early history of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Career Tuck was born in Buffalo, New York in 1940; he received a doctoral degree from Syracuse University.Tuck, James A. from the Library of Congress Name Authority He subsequently began teaching and practicing archaeology as a faculty member at Memorial University of Newfoundland.Recipient biography at Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Since the late 1960s, Tuck focused his archaeological work in Newfoundland and Labrador.
His early work included unearthing the Maritime Archaic burial ground at Port au Choix. From 1977 until the late 1980s he excavated the sixteenth century Basque whaling station at Red Bay Labrador.
Starting in 1969 he led teams that excavated Inuit graves on Rose Island which is now in Torngat Mountains National Park.Tuck, James 1975 Prehistory of Saglek Bay, Labrador: Archaic and Palaeo-Eskimo Occupations. Archaeological Survey of Canada Mercury Paper No. 32. National Museum of Man, Ottawa.ARCTIC VOL. 33, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1980). P. 585 - 606 Preliminary Report on the Torngat Archaeological Project which is viewed by the local Inuit as a desecration and robbery. This led to the remains of 113 Inuit – 100 from Rose Island and 13 from Upernavik Island being repatriated and reburied in a common grave in 1995. A further 11 Inuit remains were repatriated in a special ceremony on August 16, 2011, attended by the Honourable Kathy Dunderdale, Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nunatsiavut President Jim Lyall.Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement - April 1st, 2011 - March 31st, 2012
Since the late 1980s, Tuck worked on unearthing the Province of Avalon located at Ferryland. To date the dig has found and catalogued over two million artifacts from the site.
Tuck was a supporter of Patricia Sutherland's controversial theoryBarber, Elizabeth Wayland (1992) Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean, Princeton University Press, "We now have at least two pieces of evidence that this important principle of twisting for strength dates to the Palaeolithic. In 1953, the Abbé Glory was investigating floor deposits in a steep corridor of the famed Lascaux caves in southern France [...] a long piece of Palaeolithic cord [...] neatly twisted in the S direction [...] from three Z-plied strands [...]" that there was European contact with the Dorset on Baffin Island, Canada, hundreds of years before the Norse started settling in Greenland in 985 CE. He died on May 10, 2019, at the age of 79 at Martha's Vineyard Hospital in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.
Awards 1982 elected to fellowship in the Royal Society of Canada 2004 awarded the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador 2009 awarded The Smith-Wintemberg Award by the Canadian Archaeological Association
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