172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.91 



publication ; but a few remarks concerning these groups will be useful 

 in these connections. 



Of the physically non-Eskimo peoples of the coast and islands of 

 Alaska there are now known four groups, and it seems probable that 

 no other larger units wUl be discovered. These are the Aleuts and the 

 Kodiak Island Koniags, with the Pre- Aleuts and Pre-Koniags unearthed 

 in our excavations ; and there are the people of the eastern third of the 

 Alaska Peninsula, who are a mixture of the Eskimo and the Aleut. 

 As for the Indians, some additions are now possible from southern 

 and southeastern Alaska. 



The statement that no further large ethnic unit is likely to be 

 discovered in Alaska should not be taken to mean that no other con- 

 tingents have ever passed through or along the Territory. It means 

 that no trace of occupancy by any such group has been discovered in 

 our general and intensive survey of the region. This survey covered 

 all the more important parts of the coasts, rivers, and islands, and it is 

 unlikely that evidence of occupancy by an additional physical or 

 cultural group was missed ; the same applies to evidence of any really 

 ancient occupation. But the present shores of rivers, coasts, and 

 islands are far from where they were three, four, or more thousands 

 of years ago. Alaska is a land of living geology, with erosion every- 

 where very active. Banks and shores are constantly being cut or 

 undermined, and the silts and debris build new bars, shallows, islands, 

 and eventually flats. Yet man at all times in these parts has been 

 obliged to live close to the sea or on the banks of the larger streams, 

 and such settlements in the course of time have aU had to be abandoned, 

 or else be ultimately cut away. These matters were discussed, with 

 some examples, in the report "Anthropological Survey in Alaska," 

 already cited. Wliat chance, under such circumstances, would there 

 be of a survival of evidence of any ancient human occupation? More- 

 over, as long as the road "toward the sun" was free, man would hardly 

 stop in the inhospitable Far North for any permanent or long-lasting 

 settlement. Thus, the absence of evidence in Alaska of human groups 

 other than those here mentioned cannot be a negation of the proba- 

 bility of other, older contingents of man having passed tlu-ough; it 

 only emphasizes the fact that there is little possibility of their being 

 discovered. 



The Eskimo territory, as is well known, spreads from Greenland and 

 Labrador in the east to the Alaska Peninsula in the west, skirting ev- 

 erywhere the seashores. The linguistic and cultural similarities over all 

 this region indicate that the spread of the group must be relatively 

 recent, and the close physical likenesses sustain this opinion. There 

 are some dialectic differences, but they do not show satisfactory lines 

 of demarcation. From place to place the Eskimo differ somewhat in 

 stature and even in head form, but with one exception there is no 



