An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 217 
tioned group have not yet been observed further south than 75? N. Lat. 
on the east coast. The traces of Eskimo which were found on the south- 
west coast in the time of Eric the Red ought, then, to be accounted to 
the Neoeskimo! who went south round Greenland to the east coast, 
whither they were allured by the whale hunting, or where they possibly 
retired under the influence of the immigrating Scandinavians in South- 
western Greenland. 
To this must be added the question of the consequential change 
in the climate. On the basis of investigations, the correctness of which 
I shall not try to decide, O. PETTERSON has recently propounded the 
view that Greenland, about 1000 A. D., for a period enjoyed better 
elimatie conditions with a somewhat higher total temperature, without 
the masses of “Storis” along the east and south coasts such as are 
now known. This more favourable climate, then, benefited South 
Greenland; and the distriet round the Eysterbygd ought, then, parti- 
cularly to have had a temperate climate. This mild period should have 
brought about the retirement of the Eskimo to more northern distriets; 
but when in the 13th—14th centuries, the climate again deteriorated, 
the Eskimo advanced once more. 
Whatever may have been the conditions of this, possibly, milder 
period and of the supposed cessation of the “Storis” during the first 
centuries of the Scandinavian colonization, I believe, in any case, that 
the Eskimo advances into South Greenland, and especially the great 
x 
1 One is tempted to ask whether they were Palæeskimo or Neoeskimo, whom 
the Scandinavians met with on the American coast on their Vineland journey. 
The whole of this coincidence is so obscure, however, that one is wise in not 
dragging it into the investigation. To this must be added that, from a lite- 
rary point of view, the report has possibly been garbled by the admixture 
of irrelevant details, in that European incentive has possibly intermingled 
with the Saga poetry. As a result of America having been confounded with 
Western Europe such an admixture is supposed, for example, to be contained 
in Erik’s Saga, where there is a report of the two Skrælings captured in Mark- 
land: “They declared, further, that another land lay on the other side right 
opposite their own where the people were dressed in white clothes and carried 
poles, with small pieces of skin (?) attached to them, and shouted loudly.” 
(The translation is from W. THALBITZER, Four Skreling words from Mark- 
land (Newfoundland) in the Saga of Erik the Red; Proceedings of the XVIIIth 
Internat. Congress of Americanists). I shall not express an opinion about 
what must really be understood by Markland, or whether — provided the 
mentioned Skrelings really were Eskimo — one can find people within the 
sphere of contact with the Eskimo to whom the strange description of the 
white clothes and the laps of skin on poles might possibly apply. The 
information from the Saga that the Skrælings came in a great quantity of 
boats — “row after row while from all the boats poles were swung,” gives 
one the impression that they must have been Neoeskimo, as the description 
seems to fit in with kayak paddlers with double paddles, but, as stated, 
the problems are here too many and too difficult to allow of my doing 
more than to call attention to one or two of them. 
