518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



Other artifacts of ivory and bone such as dart points, knife handles, 

 scrapers, and ornaments (pi. 10), were recognizable as Dorset mainly 

 because line holes and other perforations, when present, were always 

 cut or gouged out, according to invariable Dorset custom, for these, 

 like all other Dorset people, had no knowledge of the bow drill. How- 

 ever, the forms of the implements themselves were for the most part 

 new to the Dorset culture. The few ornaments and the simple 

 straight-line decoration on artifacts also had no exact counterparts in 

 Dorset culture. Finally, we found no trace at T 1 of such typical 

 Dorset types as closed-socket harpoon heads with two line holes, open- 

 socket heads with single spur and line hole at edge, harpoon fore- 

 shafts with lateral line hole, small knife handles with deep side sockets, 

 ivory runners for hand sleds with ends fitted together, ivory spatulas, 

 projectile points with deeply concave bases, end scrapers with ex- 

 panded edges, concave side scrapers, asymmetric knife blades, and 

 grotesque human and animal carvings. The absence of these typical 

 Dorset features could hardly have been accidental for the amount of 

 material excavated here was considerably greater than from any other 

 Dorset culture site. As the work progressed it became clear that the 

 T 1 site, though conforming in general to the basic Dorset pattern as 

 known from other sites of this culture in the central and eastern 

 Arctic, was in many other respects specifically different. It repre- 

 sented a new and distinctive phase of the Dorset culture; or, if it 

 could be proved to be older than other Dorset sites it might more prop- 

 erly be described as proto- or formative Dorset. 



The question that confronted us was whether the T 1 site did, in fact, 

 represent an older, simpler stage leading up to the classic Dorset cul- 

 ture, or perhaps a later, somewhat degenerate stage. The former ex- 

 planation seemed more probable, for several reasons. First, the small 

 T 2 site, which was typical Dorset, seemed definitely later than T 1. 

 It was adjacent to the recent Sadlermiut site and was only 25 feet 

 above sea level in contrast to the 70-foot elevation of T 1. The mate- 

 rial excavated at T 2 included hardly any of the types that were 

 prominent at T 1. On the other hand, it was significant that the 

 limited excavations at T 2 yielded a number of typical Dorset imple- 

 ments that were not found at T 1. These were harpoon blades with 

 deeply concave base, asymmetric knife blades, slender knife handles 

 with deep side socket, ivory sled runners (for hand sled) with ends 

 fitted together, and late Dorset-type harpon heads (pi. 11). As these 

 were types that were characteristic of O'Bryan's late Dorset site on 

 Mill Island, it seemed clear that T 2 was later than T 1. 



The stone implements provided another means of deciding the ques- 

 tion. As mentioned before, some of the T 1 implements were types 

 not previously found in America. Among these were long rectangu- 



