Bering Strait and Population Spread— Giddings 93 

 Migrations 



The first concept to be considered is that so often advanced 

 in the literature as "migration." - The first Americans "mi- 

 grate" from Asia. Languages are transported from Asia (leav- 

 ing no trace in their homeland!) by means of "migrations." 

 What is meant by this magic aid that we have all used so freely 

 in the past? What are its mechanics at the Bering Strait gate- 

 way itself? 



Logical though the movement of groups of mankind across 

 either a former land bridge or the present navigable waterway 

 may seem from the vantage ground of a distant classroom, such 

 movements become nebulous in the extreme when one tries to 

 invoke them while in the Alaskan field. Let us see what might 

 have led to the movements that may have populated America 

 down through the millennia. A list of common assumptions 

 might be as follows: 



1. Man follows his game animals— caribou, mammoth, bison. 



2. Man seeks more room in a new land— escapes the pressures 

 behind. 



3. Man searches for a milder climate— seeks a route southward. 



One can have no argument with any of these propositions 

 if he leaves out all the qualifiers of pre-direction, pre-determi- 

 nation— removes the "seek," and "search," and "follow," and 

 substitutes "finds"— and allows an infinitude of time. But does 

 he not then have, instead of migration, a mere population 

 spread? "Migration" usually connotes more than a spread. 

 Spilled molasses does not "migrate" across a table top. Let us 

 then examine the propositions cited as though they retained 

 an element of purposefulness. 



The nomadic hunter does not follow his game, if we may 

 judge from ethnographic evidence— he intercepts it. The ani- 

 mal migrates— man intercepts. Thus the caribou annually 

 gather in herds in northern Alaska and move northward to- 



2 The following remarks are directed towards the more theoretical approaches 

 to the subject, rather than to those of Arctic specialists, whose reconstructions 

 of movements at Bering Strait are defined by specific cross-relationships. 



