166 H. P. STEENSBY. 
Third Group. In this are comprised all the things which have a 
central distribution and disappear gradually as we get away from 
the central Archipelago. These are especially the typical features of 
the winter culture or the methods of hunting on ice, the dog sledge, the 
snow house, etc. 
The conditions pertaining to the distribution of the last two groups 
indicate a central origin. One may even be tempted to consider that 
the central or third group is the youngest one, which has supplanted 
the eastern and western forms and forced them asunder outwards. 
However, for several reasons which will be apparent from the 
preceding anthropogeographical investigations this cannot be the case; 
the central Arctic group must represent the oldest Eskimo culture, as 
will also be seen from the following arguments: 
1) The reason why the so-called second group or certain Subarctic 
implements and methods do not occur in the central regions is 
due to purely geographical causes, as shown above. 
2) Moreover, it has been shown that the most typical Subarctic forms 
are easily explained either as borrowed later from outside sources 
(for example the umiak) or — like the hunting kayak — as 
special products of Arctic Eskimo implements developed by adap- 
tation to Subarctic surroundings, and, probably, incited by adop- 
tion of elements from outside. 
Among the Central Arctic Eskimo, on the other hand, one meets 
with all the methods and implements which are peculiar to 
Eskimo culture (i. e. those not found in other cultures), and 
they are met with in their most primitive form and usage, while 
among the western and eastern Subarctic Eskimo they either do 
not occur (methods of hunting on the ice, the snow house, etc.) 
or else they have been developed to a special degree (the finest in- 
stance of which again is the development of the hunting kayak 
from the river kayak). 
4) A further argument for the transition from Arctic to Subarctic 
Eskimo culture is that such a transition must as a matter of 
fact have taken place from the Arctic Archipelago and Arctic 
Northern Greenland to Southern Subarctic Greenland and from 
the Arctic Archipelago to Labrador. Consequently, as the transi- 
tion from Arctic to Subarctic culture can take place, and has 
taken place, in an easterly direction, our supposition that it has . 
also happened along the western line of distribution of the Eskimo 
culture from the Archipelago to Alaska is strengthened. 
Consequently, from the above arguments, we are compelled to as- 
sume that the Eskimo culture is oldest in its Arctic form. 
The Subarctic Eskimo culture, on the other hand, must be regarded 
as a form derived from the Arctic Eskimo culture, which has been brought 
about partly by new-adaptations, when the Eskimo emigrated down into 
3 
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