﻿152 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 78 



reasons to return with the table better and better spread before them 

 the farther they reached, and no opposition. The only questions can 

 be, what were the exact routes the different contingents of these 

 people took ; and where are we to look and watch for their remains? 



In this last respect the inquiries made along the Yukon and the 

 coast and the islands were very instructive. There was certainly no 

 single large migration. The people came over the Diomedes, through 

 the Bering Sea, north and south of the Bering Strait ; they came in 

 small tri1)al groups, and this was doubtless repeated over a long period 



Fk;. 151. — Just south of Fast Cape of Asia. Native village to left. 



of time. Then, judging from historic evidences, their movements 

 were as follows : 



It may be presumed that ancient man adhered to very nnich the 

 same routes as those that are in use today, as the most practical, the 

 most natural and sometimes the only available ones. Undoubtedly 

 the greatest and most frequented route of farther spread was that 

 along the coast down to the base of the Alaskan Peninsula, where 

 with the inlets and lakes there is but a little portage over land to 

 the Gulf of Alaska. Then there were the routes up the Yukon and 

 Kuskokwim Rivers. On the Yukon, the earlier contingents probably 

 did not go right up the whole stream, but branched off at the Tanana 

 River and then went towards the Copper River which brought them 

 into Prince of Wales Sound and the Gulf of Alaska. There were two 

 other routes, one down the Koyokuk River, one of the largest tribu- 

 taries of the Yukon, by which they would reach the latter ; and the 



