The total current population of Nunavut (as of 2011) is estimated to be around 33,330 people, the vast majority (84%) of whom are Inuit. Of the approximately 28,000 Inuit living in Nunavut, more than half of them reside in the eastern Qikiqtaaluk region of the territory and, remarkably, they are mostly young people. Nearly three quarters of all the Inuit living in Nunavut today are less than 40 years old.Nunavut has supported a continuous indigenous population for over 4,000 years. Archaeologists and geneticists are now certain that the predecessors of today's Inuit originated in the area of the Bering Strait, which separates Asia from North America. The first indigenous group, known as Paleo-Eskimos, crossed the Bering Strait sometime around 3000 BC and moved into the Canadian Arctic Archipelago around 2500 BC, apparently because of a change in climate. From there they followed marine mammals and herds of big game land animals across all of Nunavut to Greenland.Paleo-Eskimo Culture
Paleo-Eskimo people inhabited the entire Arctic from Chukotka in present-day Russia across North America to Greenland prior to the rise of the ancient Thule and modern Inuit. The first known Paleo-Eskimo culture in Nunavut developed around 2500 BC.
In 2010, using fragments of hair 4,000 years old, scientists from the National Museum of Denmark and Beijing Genomics Institute sequenced nearly 80% of an ancient Paleo-Eskimo man's genome. He was found in Greenland and he belonged to the Saqqaq culture. Based on his genome, scientists conclude that his people migrated from Siberia to North America 5,000 years ago, then to Greenland 500 years later. This ancient man — dubbed 'Inuk' — had A+ blood type and genes suggesting he was adapted to cold weather, with brown eyes, brownish skin and dark hair, with a likelihood of male pattern baldness in his old age.
Ancient Nunavut descendents of Paleo-Eskimo people include the Pre-Dorset and Dorset cultures. The Dorset people were the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture living in the Arctic before the migration east from present-day Alaska of the Thule, the direct ancestors of the Inuit.