THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF THE ESKIMO — COLLINS 437 



eiivironment in which they Jived was essentially that oi" the present 

 and the animals they hunted were all of species still living today. 

 Okladnikov regards the Baikal Neolithic as the Siberian equivalent 

 of the European Mesolithic and dates it from the sixth millennium to 

 the tenth century B. C, an estimate which, however, may be some- 

 what excessive. It would probably be better, following Clark ( 1940) , to 

 regard the Lake Baikal remains as "modified" Mesolithic, for, unlike 

 the European Mesolithic, they include Neolithic elements. The small, 

 delicately chipped, symmetrical arrowpoints, closely resembling 

 Eskimo and American Indian types, are unlike those from pre-Neo- 

 lithic horizons in Eurasia. Likewise, at the Baikal sites there are 

 neither microliths nor burins, implements that are characteristic of 

 the European Mesolithic and that, like Mesolithic art motifs, rep- 

 resent a direct continuation from the Upper Paleolithic. 



The three latest stages of the Baikal sequence included several 

 distinctive types of artifacts and art motifs that were also charac- 

 teristic of the Punuk, the intermediate stage of Alaskan Eskimo 

 culture. 



It is the earlier periods of Baikal culture — the Isakovski and 

 Serovski — that are of particular interest and importance in connection 

 with the problem of Eskimo culture. As might be expected, this early 

 Neolithic was not a rich or elaborate culture. It is significant never- 

 theless that the entire range of implement types of the two oldest stages 

 described by Okladnikov are, with the exception of shell beads and a 

 few other ornaments, types which also occur in prehistoric Eskimo 

 culture. These are the bow and arrow, polished-stone adzes, crescent- 

 shaped jade and schist knives, scrapers, knives and lances with side 

 blades, needles, needle cases, awls, and pottery vessels with conical 

 and rounded bases. 



Among the most striking features of the early Lake Baikal Neolithic 

 are lances and knives with rows of small stone blades inserted in the 

 edges (fig. 2, d). Side-bladed implements of corresponding form are 

 also known from Neolithic Yang Shao sites in western China and 

 Tibet (knives) and from Neolithic cave sites just east of the Urals 

 (arrowheads and lances or knives, fig. 2, c). Side-bladed knives and 

 projectile points are even more typical of the Mesolithic of northern 

 Europe, being found at sites in southern Sweden, Denmark (fig. 2, a, b) , 

 northern Germany, Esthonia, and Belgium. In Alaska the prehistoric 

 Eskimos of the Ipiutak, Old Bering Sea, and Birnirk periods used 

 side-bladed knives and also equipped some of their harpoon heads 

 with small stone side blades. The Ipiutak now furnishes a closer 

 parallel in having bone and ivory arrowheads and lances with rows 

 of small side blades directly comparable with the Siberian and 

 Mesolithic forms (fig. 2, e, f). These side-bladed arrowheads and 

 l.^.ilQ^s ai:e complex in form and their distribution is significant, being 



