Bering Strait and Population Spread— Giddings 91 



terial culture of this group was oriented towards the same 

 pursuits of partly-coastal, partly-inland hunting that presently 

 characterize some of the populations of the Bering Sea coasts 

 of Alaska. 



The earliest occupation of Iyatayet, on the other hand, is 

 represented by a different sort of workmanship, and a different 

 combination of artifact types from those of other known 

 Alaskan coastal sites. Contained here in a normally pencil-thin 

 layer on top of peri-glacial sterile deposits, and covered by 

 sterile silt-loam and a peaty layer, are found types of artifacts 

 familiar to us from distant places, but, with few exceptions, 

 unlike those in neighboring coastal areas. More than half of 

 the collection of 1500 artifacts uncovered in place are lamelles, 

 cores, and retouched lamelles in a variety of delicate micro- 

 lithic forms. A quarter of the collection represents several 

 forms of a flint tool that was recognized here apparently for the 

 first time in the New World— the burin ("graver" in the Euro- 

 pean sense), known best from its important status in the Upper 

 Paleolithic of Europe. Other forms include a channeled (Fol- 

 som) point, several fragments of large obliquely-flaked "Yumas" 

 like those of the American Southwest, and other flint types 

 known from either Europe and Asia or more southerly parts of 

 America. 



Geologically, the site manifests features that clearly relate to 

 climatic changes. These features are to be the subject of a 

 paper by David M. Hopkins, of the U. S. Geological Survey, 

 who visited the site. We may only say now, in the absence of 

 radiocarbon dates or Mr. Hopkins' final conclusions, that the 

 "Denbigh Flint Complex," as we designate the oldest materials, 

 was probably laid down by as much as 6000 years ago. 



With the Cape Denbigh sequence as a yardstick, we may then 

 place other manifestations containing less definite stratigraphy, 

 and fewer artifacts, into a probable time perspective. The Trail 

 Creek caves, not yet described in full, have been indicated by 

 Helge Larsen to contain a scattering of artifacts near the bottom 

 of the deposit that recall aspects of the Denbigh Flint Complex, 

 with a capping of palae-Eskimo and neo-Eskimo materials. 



