394 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



probably much earlier, then we should look for its inland predecessor 

 in that "Siberian pocket" of which Zolotarev speaks, the Barstinsky 

 Steppes, the upper Irtish, Ob, and Yenisei regions, and the narrow 

 strip of territory extending to Yakutsk. Quite probably it will prove 

 to be but one of many cultures, closely alike, that extended during 

 epipaleolithic and early neolithic times from the Baltic to eastern 

 Siberia. The snowshoe may have originated on the southern fringe 

 of this zone, perhaps near the Lake Baikal region. At all events, the 

 complex to which it gave rise seems to have contributed veiy little 

 to the Eskimo cultures until relatively recent times, if we disregard 

 the pressure exerted by its American carriers, the invading Atha- 

 paskans, on the Eskimo of eastern Canada. As far as we know today, 

 the snowshoe itself first appears among the Eskimo in the Thule-age 

 mound dwellings at Wales, Alaska, w^hich may not be older than 6 or 

 8 centuries. 



I have suggested that pottery, being unknown to the Dorset people, 

 reached Bering Strait after some of the Eskimo had already entered 

 America and wandered eastward. Richthofen -^ has drawn attention 

 to the striking resemblances, particularly in decoration, between pot- 

 tery found at Krasnojarsk and other places in Siberia, and pottery 

 from the Algonquian or Woodland area in eastern Canada and the 

 northeast United States. Following up this observation, McKern " 

 suggests that "a culture closely related and directly parent to the 

 Woodland Pattern, wdth pottery but without agriculture, originated 

 in Asia, came into America and inland by way of the Yukon and 

 Mackenzie Valleys, had a special development in a locale centering 

 just south of Lake Superior to become what is now classified as the 

 Woodland Pattern, and diffused from that center west, south, and 

 east to its maximum area limits, which are not as yet well defined." 



There are serious objections to this hypothesis. In the first place 

 we have no evidence that any of the pottery found in this section of 

 North America dates back beyond the Christian Era, and in more' 

 than one place, e. g., at Lamoka, we have discovered the remains of 

 an earlier people who, like the Newfoundland Beothuk, did not use 

 pottery. Secondly, not a single sherd of pottery is known from the 

 Mackenzie River Basin or the upper reaches of the Yukon ; and the 

 pottery on the lower Yukon was probably copied from the Eskimo 

 of the Punuk period. We have every reason to believe that no Atha- 

 paskan tribe ever made pottery unless, like the Sarcee, it was in close 

 contact with a pottery-using people. It is true that we have found 



** Richthofen, B. Frhr. V., Zur Frape der archiioolofrischen Beziehungen zwischen Nord- 

 amerika und Nordasien. Anthropos, vol. 27, pp. 123-151, 1032. 



*» McKern, W. C. An hypothesis for tho Asiatic origin of the Woodland culture pattern. 

 Amer. Antiquity, vol. 3, pp. 13S-143, 1937. Cf. also Fewkes, V. J., Aboriginal potsherds 

 from Red River, Manitoba. Ibid., pp. 143-135. 



