MILAN 



Experimental data are available which describe some aspect of 

 thermoregulation in peoples as various as Eskimos, Arctic Athapas- 

 cans, South American Indians (the Alacaluf), Norwegian Lapps, Aus- 

 tralian aborigines, African Bushmen, American Negroes, European 

 Norwegians, and a host of North American White controls. In this 

 paper these data will be reviewed and the results of my own experi- 

 ment which was designed to further investigate thermoregulation 

 and to compare tissue insulation in Anaktuvuk Eskimos , Athapascans , 

 and Caucasian soldiers will be presented. 



A HISTORICAL REVIEW AND LITERATURE SURVEY 



The Eskimo 



Possibly because of their geographical location, the earliest 

 studies were undertaken on the Eskimos. The Eskimos are a geneti- 

 cally, linguistically, and culturally homogeneous population living 

 along the coasts of Greenland, Northern North America, and a small 

 area of Siberia. It is apparent that they have been in the Arctic for a 

 considerable length of time. The Denbigh Flint Complex of Norton 

 Sound, presently the oldest cultural assemblage on the Alaskan side 

 of the Bering Strait, has been dated at between 2500 and 3000 B.C. 

 Eskimo type cultures have succeeded one another in this area from 

 about 500 B. C. to the present (Giddings, 1960). Material from the 

 bottom layers of a midden at Nikolski, Umnak Island, in the Aleu- 

 tians has been dated ataboutSOOO B.C. (Laughlin and Marsh, 1951). 



A folk migration of expert arctic travelers, carriers of the 

 Thule culture, wandered from the Bering Strait 6,000 miles to 

 Greenland about 1,000 years ago and caused the present linguistic, 

 racial, and cultural homogeneity over this vast area (Collins, 1954). 

 The Thule people replaced the earlier arrivals, the Dorset people, 

 who had been in the eastern Canadian Arctic and Greenland since 

 about 675 B. C, (Larsen and Meldgaard, 1958). The fiist European- 



336 



