48 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



through a number of developmental stages and for that reason fur- 

 nishes the best criterion for determining the relation of one site to 

 another. Most of the harpoon heads from Birnirk were of bone, with 

 an open socket and two or more asymmetrical spurs at the base, and 

 a side blade of flint with an opposite barb or with two side blades and 

 no barb (fig. 45, 0) — a type already known as the Birnirk. Other 

 types of heads found at Birnirk are shown in Figure 45, c, f, g. Only 

 one example of the Thule type 2, with two barbs, was found. How- 

 ever, this type (see fig. 45, b) predominated at the older part of the 

 more recent site of Utkiavik. Here it later developed into forms 

 characteristic of the period just preceding the historic as shown by 

 their association with metal and late types of implements ( fig. 45, c, d). 



In the cultural sequence here revealed — Birnirk, Thule, modern — 

 the Old Bering Sea culture is conspicuously absent. However, Mr. 

 Ford found a few examples of Old Bering Sea art in burial mounds 

 on the tundra back from Utkiavik. Burials similar to these were also 

 found at Nunavaak and are reported by natives at various points down 

 the coast. At Nunavaak the only sign of habitation near the mounds 

 was a house ruin of no great age. This, together with the fact that 

 the material from the burials does not correspond to that from the 

 existing old or later sites nearby, leads Mr. Ford to the conclusion that 

 the Eskimos of the Old Bering Sea period may have lived in low- 

 lying settlements near the mouths of streams which, with later topo- 

 graphical changes, became lagoons. 



Mr. Ford's excavations have furnished the basis for a cultural 

 chronology of the north Alaska coast which supplements that pre- 

 viously established for the region about Bering Strait. In the latter 

 region the sequence w^as Old Bering Sea, Punuk, and modern, with 

 Birnirk harpoon heads occurring sporadically early in the Punuk 

 stage and Thule heads beginning to appear somewhat later and be- 

 coming more abundant in the protohistoric period. Around Barrow the 

 Old Bering Sea stage appears to be lacking except in the mound 

 burials. Assuming it to have been the earliest there, we have next the 

 Birnirk, then the Thule, and then the modern. The Punuk stage, so 

 prominent around Bering Strait, finds no place in the Barrow se- 

 quence. However, from a house ruin at Point Belcher, 60 miles below 

 Barrow, Mr. Ford obtained some typical Punuk material, including the 

 harpoon head shown in figure 45. //. This house was partly beneath 

 the water of the lagoon ; in the bank above were house ruins and refuse 

 piles which yielded Thule material. Here there seems to be evidence of 

 a direct migration of a group of Eskimos from around Bering Strait, 

 bringing typical Punuk culture to a region where it had not pre- 

 viously existed. 



