462 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAIST INSTITUTION, 193 3 



slightly inward. Low sleeping platforms extended along the floor 

 on two or three sides. Heavy logs set in the floor supported two 

 or three large whale jaws or timbers which served as roof beams. 

 There was a very long and narrow entrance passage. 



THE ARCTIC COAST 



While Eskimo culture on St. Lawrence Island was passing through 

 the several stages outlined above, it was undergoing modifications 

 of a somewhat different nature around Bering Strait and northward. 

 Punuk influence was felt in this region, for examples of the art 

 have been found in middens and house ruins at Wales and the 

 Diomedes as well as at Point Hope and Point Belcher on the Arctic 

 coast. But in these regions the Punuk as an intermediate culture 

 was overshadowed by the Thule. Dr. Therkel Mathiassen, the dis- 

 coverer of the Thule culture in northern Canada, was able to show 

 that it had originated in the west.^^ Just where the Thule fitted 

 into the Alaskan sequence, however, was not clear, although it ap- 

 peared to be more closely related to the Punuk and to modern 

 Alaskan culture than to the Old Bering Sea culture. In order to 

 obtain definite evidence on this point, James A. Ford was detailed 

 by the Smithsonian Institution in 1931 and 1932 to carry on excava- 

 tions around Point Barrow.^^ This region was selected because it 

 seems to have been the easternmost point to which Old Bering Sea 

 influence extended, and the most westerly point at which the Thule 

 culture existed as a type. 



The oldest site at which Ford excavated was Birnirk. Here the 

 bulk of the harpoon heads were of the type which had been previ- 

 ously designated by that name — the Birnirk type — being made 

 usually of bone, with an open socket, a side blade of chipped flint 

 with an opposite barb (sometimes with another blade in place of the 

 barb) and with two or more asymmetrical spurs at the base (pi. 11, 

 fig. 1). Other types of harpoon heads from Birnirk are shown on 

 plate 11, figures 5-7. Onl}^ one harpoon head of the Thule No. 2 

 type (with two barbs) was found at Birnirk. However, this type 

 (pi. 11, fig. 2), was common at the more recent site of Utkiavik, where 

 somewhat later it developed into forms characteristic of the period 

 just preceding the historic, as shown by their association with metal 

 and late types of implements (pi, 11, figs. 3, 4). The harpoon head 

 shown on plate 11, figure 8, came from a house ruin at Point Belcher, 

 60 miles below Barrow, and is of particular interest because it is a 

 Punuk type. From the same ruin Ford obtained several objects 



" Mathiassen, Therkel, op. cit. 



" Collins, H. B., Jr., Archeological Investigations at Point Barrow, Alaska, Explora- 

 tions and Field-Work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1932, Smithsonian Publ. no. 3213, 

 pp. 45-48, 1933. 



