NO. 14 PREHISTORIC ART OF ALASKAX ESKIMO — COLLIXS 43 



Comparison of the decorated objects and harpoon heads of the 

 Thule culture with similar material from the new collections from 

 old Bering Sea sites appears to throw additional light on the time 

 relations involved. Comparatively few examples of decorative art are 

 included in the Thule finds, and what there is shows but little resem- 

 blance to the ancient Alaskan art. It is, however, very similar to mod- 

 ern Alaskan art. Lines, spurs, the Y figure, and the dot are the 

 geometric elements represented; the circle was not found. Most 

 significant, however, is the presence in the Thule culture of a few 

 crude examples of realistic etchings of animals and objects.^ This type 

 of art has never been found at an ancient site in Alaska, although it is a 

 most characteristic feature of modern Alaskan Eskimo art. The Thule 

 culture, therefore, with an art style very close to that of the 

 modern Alaskan Eskimo can hardly have been older than the 

 ancient Bering Sea culture which dates from a time when realistic art 

 apparently had not yet appeared. A possible explanation of the origin 

 of the realistic or graphic art of the modern western Eskimo might 

 be that it was derived from the Thule culture through a return migra- 

 tion within the past few centuries, subsequent to the original eastward 

 spread of the Thule culture. In this way could be explained the ab- 

 sence of realistic art at the old Alaskan sites and its presence at the 

 old Thule sites to the eastward. But even if the realistic art of the 

 Thule culture should be assigned a greater antiquity than in the west- 

 ern regions, the origin of the geometric art found at the same Thule 

 sites would remain to be explained. It has been shown that the ancient 

 Bering Sea art embodied the principal basic elements that are found 

 in the simplified geometric art of the modern period — and of the 

 Thule culture; the geometric art of the west, therefore, can be ade- 

 quately explained as a local growth and there is no necessity in look- 

 ing for its source elsewhere. 



Among the harpoon heads from Thule sites there are many that 

 show features known in the western regions only from a compara- 

 tively late period. First, it will be noted that even at the oldest Thule 

 sites drilled holes for the lashing of the foreshaft are found, whereas 

 Jenness finds this type of lashing to be later at Bering Strait than the 

 use of rectangular slots. It is also late on St. Lawrence Island, and 

 while it appears not to have been a common type, there is one ex- 

 ample in the National Museum collection having an iron blade and a 

 small peg at the upper end for holding it in place. On Punuk Island 

 only one harpoon head with drilled holes was found, and this again 



* Archeology of the Central Eskimo. Vol. II, pp. 120-125. 



