ARCHEOLOGY AND ECOLOGY OF ALASKA — SOLECKI 485 



mosses, and low shrubs interspersed with pools of standing water, pre- 

 sents a very uneven, hummocky land surface for walking, reducing the 

 normal rate of travel speed considerably. On occasions, when travers- 

 ing a particularly long stretch of tundra, it was found that the actual 

 walking rate was only a little better than 2 miles per hour. The pace 

 is exceedingly variable depending upon the particular stretch of ter- 

 rain covered. 



My archeological discoveries on the survey of the two river drain- 

 ages may be roughly segregated into three temporal horizons. Divided 

 into phases of occupation, we may distinguish as the earliest the poly- 

 hedral flint-core and lamellar-flake phase. The second is the pre- 

 historic Eskimo phase, and the third, the historic Western Eskimo 

 phase. The earliest of these phases, referred to previously as "Meso- 

 lithic" and represented by the two sites on the Kukpowruk River, 

 may be equated with the University of Alaska campus site and in- 

 directly with the finds made by Nelson in the Gobi Desert.* Dr. Nel- 

 son examined the cores and flakes from the Kukpowruk River sites 

 when the writer visited him at the American Museum of Natural 

 History, and noted that the cores (pi. 3, c) recovered from one site 

 (No. 65) are larger than the average polyhedral fluted cores. 



In order to evaluate properly the polyhedral core-flake culture, 

 we may weigh the data by using an approach such as the triad of Gra- 

 hame Clark (1939, p. 133) : (1) Typological considerations, (2) 

 find complex, (3) geographical distributions. The total gives us a 

 synchronic cultural picture of the archeology in a relative temporal 

 frame of reference. In view of the fact that the fluted cores and lamel- 

 lar flakes seem to be diagnostic of a separate cultural horizon, in 

 Alaska at least, the presentation here is confined to these artifacts. 

 Therefore for the sake of brevity and to eliminate detailed analysis of 

 artifacts, the other accompanying lithic material from the various 

 sites discussed is not enlarged upon. It may be noted that rubbed 

 and polished stone implements, such as stone axes, are equally absent 

 from this find complex, as they are from the well-established Paleo- 

 Indian complexes. The fluted cores undoubtedly were the byproduct 

 of the manufacture of the lamellar flakes. Uses for the latter may 

 have been as small knives or possibly as inserts set in at the point 

 end of a spear. They could also have been inserted in large projectile 

 shafts. 



It is not necessary to dwell on the description of the type speci- 

 mens, since Nelson (1937, pp. 270-272) has already described them 

 well. The technique of manufacture was presumably so specialized 

 that it certainly did not have its origin in a short time span. The 

 distribution is rather widespread over northern Eurasia and North 



♦ This is on the basis of the diagnostic lamellar flint flakes and the "fluted" or polyhedral flint cores f.pl. 3) 



