An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 213 
the big migrations had to cease, in any case, for a time. This con- 
sideration, however, is quite theoretical; we have no definite observa- 
tions or facts to support it. 
Some day, however, a more exact knowledge of the history of East 
Asia and of Eskimo ethnology and archæology may possibly enable us 
to decide the moment when the Neoeskimo migrations began. For 
the present I must assume that Japanese navigation can only have 
reached Bering Strait about some centuries within our era. The 
expeditions to Korea which were so inciting for the development of 
Japan's own culture took place about two centuries after the birth of 
Christ, and it is probable, I think, that, furthermore, long periods — 
possibly centuries — passed without Japanese ships reaching Bering 
Strait and the west coast of Alaska, and some time again before the 
Neoeskimo culture and population became developed under the effect 
of this and other influences. We then easily arrive in the second half 
of the first millenium. 
Palæeskimo and Neoeskimo Immigration in Greenland. 
One of the few ways in which at the present moment one is able 
to form any idea as to the period when the Neoeskimo migrations came 
from Alaska is by trying whether, perhaps, one can draw some con- 
clusions from the history of the old Scandinavians in Greenland, 
and from their concurrence with the Eskimo. 
It is well known that the Scandinavians, as early as the end of the 
10th century, found that Eskimo had been travelling along the south- 
west coast of Greenland. They did not find human beings however, 
but only remains of their houses and implements. It appears, however, 
that after this the Scandinavians occasionally met small groups of Eskimo 
on the south-east coast of Greenland?. 
In 1266 the Scandinavians met Eskimo on the west coast, north 
of the “Vesterbygd,” and in the following century first the “Vester- 
bygd” and then the “Eysterbygd’ were destroyed by obtruding Eskimo. 
Thus it was most natural to assume, as also was generally done, 
that the Eskimo had come from the north along the west coast of Green- 
land. Schultz Lorentzen was the first, however, to propound the 
view that the Eskimo in the southern part of the west coast of.Greenland 
had come from the east coast, south round Cape Farewell. Now THAL- 
BITZER? has lately subjected the Eskimo myth material containing 
reminiscences of the old Scandinavians to a methodical investigation, 
and, as it seems to me, in a convincing way proved that the old Seandi- 
navian “Vesterbygd” in the present district of Godthaab must have 
! Compare the description of THALBITZER in M.o.G. Vol. 39, р. 691. 
2 М. о. С. Vol. 39, рр. 691 sqq. 
