170 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. 94 



NOTES ON THE NON-ESKIMO CRANIA 



Less than a score of years ago Alaska from the point of view of 

 antliropology was regarded as one of the simplest regions, with only 

 the Indians and the Eskimo to be considered. How far this concept 

 was from reality will be appreciated from a study of tlie data herein 

 presented. 



The Alaska Indians in general offer much in common, though there 

 are some regional differences among them. The only marked excep- 

 tion is the group on the Shageluk Slough of tlie Yukon, which ap- 

 proaches the doHchoid Shoshonean-Algonkin strains. The Eskimo, 

 too, arc fau'ly homogeneous, with local differences. But there were 

 four groups at least in southwestern Alaska that, although belonging 

 to the same basic complex, were distinctly different from the rest. 

 Two of these, the Koniag and the Aleut, used to be erroneously 

 counted with the Eskimo; but there were also two others, older and 

 until recently not even suspected, that for a long time occupied the 

 regions of the Koniags and the Aleuts but were more or less completely 

 replaced by the latter. 



Of these four groups, the Koniags, the latest mhabitants of Kodiak 

 Island, were related to the Aleuts, as well as to the southern Alaska 

 Indians, yet had some individuality of their own. The Aleuts, shown 

 to be completely different from the Eskimo, have marked Asiatic 

 (Tungus) affinities. Both the Pre-Koniags and the Pre-Aleuts vv^ere 

 entirely distinct from the Koniags and the Aleuts, as well as from each 

 other, and were related to different types of the mainland Indian. 



Thus Alaska was a mosaic of differing types of people, and the main 

 groups have doubtless now been discovered. These peoples were 

 not very ancient, none in all probability reaching much beyond the 

 Christian Era. If there is any type still more ancient, evidence of it 

 lies in the frozen grounds that cannot yet be explored. It would 

 seem, however, that at best there could have been only sparse and 

 few stations of earlier man— there is no indication of anything on a 

 larger scale. 



Notwithstanding the differences in the various Alaska strains, there 

 was found nowhere any sharp line of demarcation. The masses 

 differed, sometimes very markedly, but many of the individuals 

 merged with others of separate groups. This was partly due, no 

 doubt, to intermixture, but in the m.ain the cause is the same as 

 between the various mamland tribes; it is the same basic racial deriva- 

 tion. Even the Eskimo in Alaska and the Indian merge to such a 

 degree that in the case of many individual crania even an expert 

 cannot be sure what he has before him. 



This matter naturally raises the question as to the meaning of 

 existing differences between these and other American native groups. 

 In general there is not one of the many American tribes, nor any two 



