SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I93O 



143 



The resulting chronology, as outlined above, is based on three main 

 lines of evidence: stratigraphy, the evidence of the old beach lines, 

 and the demonstrable succession of art styles and implement types. 

 The value of the chronology that is thus set up will in a wider sense 

 be determined by the extent to which it can be applied to the elucida- 

 tion of cultural sequences elsewhere in the Eskimo regions. We know 

 that the material culture of the modern St. Lawrence Island Eskimo 

 stands somewhat apart from the rest of Alaska, being derived for the 

 most part from the Siberian Eskimo who in turn have been strongly 

 influenced in comparatively late times by the Chukchee. As we go 



Fig. 125. — Ruins of house of older type than fig. 124. Underground en- 

 trance shown in background. At center foreground the rear wall extends 

 over the corner of a still earlier house of the Old Bering Sea period. 



further back, however, it is seen that the St. Lawrence Eskimo, 

 instead of being isolated, shared in the earlier and artistically more 

 highly developed culture that formerly extended over a large part of 

 northern Alaska and northeastern Siberia. For the Old Bering Sea 

 culture is known to have existed also on the Siberian coast, the 

 Diomede Islands, at Cape Prince of Wales, Point Hope, and Point 

 Barrow, while the later Punuk art has been found at the Diomedes 

 and at Point Hope. With regard to the relationship of the old Thule 

 culture of the East, it is significant that on St. Lawrence Island definite 

 Thule types do not appear until well into the Punuk period. This is 

 in keeping with the general situation in Alaska wherever Thule types 



