102 Alaskan Science Conference 



the forward march of time. We can say that Dorset Culture 

 retained more older elements longer than did cultures of 

 Bering Strait, but we cannot be sure that small groups near to 

 Bering Strait, yet to be discovered archaeologically, did not also 

 retain as much of the old for an equally long time. To argue 

 that the Campus Site and the lamelle-containing sites at Lake 

 Kluane are older than certain coastal sites that do not contain 

 lamelles is in vain so long as geological or more specific dating 

 is not available for both. Until radiocarbon and tree-ring dates 

 appear for numbers of sites throughout the area, we shall have 

 to rank cultural manifestations not as to whether one is older 

 than another, but as to whether or not it is more old fashioned. 

 And, of course, we must reckon in those elements of isolation 

 and distance from a center, or mainstream, of diffusion. 



In summary, it appears that Bering Strait has never been 

 subject to wide-scale migrations of peoples from Asia to America 

 such as would account for the diversity of culture, physique, 

 and language among American Indians, but that it has main- 

 tained from the distant past a locally modifying population and 

 culture, based upon the combined food resources of the land 

 and sea, and has served as a narrow conduit through which 

 diffusion has freely vibrated in both directions at all times. 



