456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



There is still a wide gap both in time and space between the oldest 

 known Eskimo cultures and the early Siberian Neolithic. If our 

 reconstruction is correct, we would expect to find somewhere in the 

 vast stretches between Lake Baikal and Bering Strait traces of the 

 later Neolithic peoples who followed the great Siberian rivers from 

 their headwaters down to the Arctic coast. There, under stimulus of 

 Arctic conditions encountered between the Kara and East Siberian 

 Seas, they developed the rudiments of the maritime culture that later 

 found its fullest expression among the Eskimos. Living in permanent 

 settlements of underground houses at the relatively few places suit- 

 able for the hunting of sea mammals, these early ancestors of the 

 Eskimos probably remained at first in more or less isolated groups 

 and continued the Neolithic mode of life, which in the Baikal region, 

 meanwhile, was giving way to bronze- and iron-age cultures. In 

 this connection we note the evidence presented by Cernecov and 

 Zolotarev that in late Neolithic times, but still before the intrusion 

 of the nomadic reindeer-breeders, the coasts and rivers of northern 

 Siberia continued to be occupied by isolated and sedentary groups 

 whose underground houses, pottery, and hunting and fishing tech- 

 niques were essentially Eskimo in character (Cernecov, 1935; Zolo- 

 tarev, 1938; Collins, 1937, 1940; Jenness, 1941). 



The final development and elaboration of Eskimo culture took place 

 at Bering Strait, a region abounding in game — walrus, seals, caribou, 

 birds, fish — and in every way more suitable for human occupation 

 than the north coast of Siberia. For a people equipped to utilize the 

 resources of the sea, Bering Strait was one of the richest hunting 

 territories of the world. Considering this and the fact that it was 

 also accessible to culture influences from the south, it is not surpris- 

 ing that Bering Strait became a center of high cultural development. 



The two factors, local culture growth and stimulus from outside, 

 combined to produce the elaborate and specialized Old Bering Sea 

 and Ipiutak cultures. Many of their individual features we know 

 were of local origin, because they are either unique or are shared 

 only with later Eskimo cultures. Nor is there reason for assuming 

 that any large segments of the culture, such as the highly developed 

 art complexes (in contradistinction to their individual elements) 

 were brought in toto from some unknown outside source. 



But, granting the potency of local culture development at Bering 

 Strait, there remains much that is difficult to explain on this basis. 

 For instance, the raised "eye" designs that are so prominent in fully 

 developed Old Bering Sea art are so much like those of early Shang 

 and Chou art in China that a connection of some kind seems probable 

 (Collins, 1937, p. 298). Ipiutak art has even closer Asiatic affinities. 

 As Larsen and Rainey have shown, some of the Ipiutak designs and 

 carvings, especially of animals, are strongly reminiscent of Scytho- 



