98 Alaskan Science Conference 



Asiatic side (assuming St. Lawrence Island to have long been a 

 cultural extension of Asia rather than of America). At what 

 point in time did the Eskimo language first emerge at Bering 

 Strait? If this question is unanswerable, as it appears to be, we 

 shall have to depend upon mutual agreement, rather than upon 

 factual information, for that point in prehistory when we cease 

 to deal with "Eskimos." 



If we now agree that both the concepts of "migrations" and 

 "Eskimos" are largely theoretical when applied to arctic 

 American prehistory, we are free to consider a specific mechan- 

 ism by which it is possible to account not only for the present 

 populations and cultures of the Arctic, but for the peopling 

 of all the Americas. This mechanism can be called simply 

 "population spread." 



Population Spread 



The mechanics of population spread can most easily be 

 understood in terms of an original family, or small group. 

 If we may, for the sake of clarity, put aside the possibility that 

 man was on hand when an early land bridge existed at Bering 

 Strait, and assume a first crossing by water from Asia to 

 America, 3 the sequence may be seen more or less as follows: 



1. Hunters one day sail or paddle their craft from East Cape 

 to Big Diomede Island, in the middle of Bering Strait. They 

 camp there for a few days, amassing local products. They 

 return with their produce and report to the villagers, or 

 campers, at East Cape that hunting conditions are good on the 

 island. We may assume that these people who set out from 

 East Cape in the first place are equipped to live under the 

 climatic and environmental conditions of this coast— that they 

 are provided with adequate cold-weather housing, warm cloth- 

 ing, and means of heating and lighting their winter dwellings— 

 else it ivould be extremely difficult to explain their presence in 

 that latitude and area. 



3 The author has no strong convictions in this direction, and feels that the 

 following principles would apply to conditions of passage over either land or 

 water. 



