154 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



After collecting- skeletal material from Akeeveenuk, a somewhat 

 more recent site near Teller, we returned to Nome and a few days 

 later started eastward toward Norton Bay in the little schooner 

 Jezvell Guard. At Koyuk, at the upper end of Norton Bay, we ob- 

 tained a dozen or more skeletons probably lOO years old. Excava- 

 tions were next made at an al)andoned village on Cape Denbeigh. 

 This ap]:)ears to be the oldest ILskimo site yet discovered in Norton 

 Sound but it is not so old as those on St. Lawrence Island and at 

 other places around Bering Strait. 



Archeological investig^ations in Northwestern Alaska during the 

 past four years have revealed facts which make it possible to begin to 

 interpret the main trends of Alaskan prehistory. First, there is 

 shown to have lived in Alaska and northeastern Sil)eria in very early 

 times a group of Eskimo who ])0ssessed a highly specialized culture 

 based primarily on the hunting of whales, seal, and walrus. They 

 lived in large semisubterranean houses constructed of driftwood and 

 whale bones and possessed an advanced material culture and an art 

 far richer and more elaborate than any since known to the Arctic 

 regions. This ancient culture has been found on St. Lawrence and 

 the Diomede Lslands, Cape Prince of Wales, Point Hope, Point Bar- 

 row, and at several localities in northeastern Siberia. We may also 

 expect to find it at Kotzebue Sound and other places between Point 

 Barrow and Bering Strait, it does not. however, seem to have ex- 

 tended eastward to Norton Sound or southward, in its typical form, 

 below St. Lawrence Island. 



At some unknown ])eriod. probably more than 500 years ago, the 

 rich curvilinear art that was one of the most characteristic features 

 of the old culture was succeeded by another similar to it in certain 

 respects but on the other hand more closely resembling that of the 

 modern Alaskan Eskimo. 'J'his later simplified art has been found at 

 St. Lawrence and Punuk islands, the Little Diomede Island, and 

 Point Hope. The designs were executed with metal tools even though 

 stone blades for knives, harpoons, and adzes were still the predomi- 

 nating forms. It seems probable that the change in art was directly 

 due to the introduction of small (piantities of metal. ])ossibly from 

 some Oriental source long l)efore the arrival of the Russians into 

 Northeastern Siberia. Some time before the discovery of Alaska by 

 the Russians this intermediate form of art was likewise discontinued, 

 to be replaced l)y the well known and still simpler art of the modern 

 Alaskan Eskimo. The changes in Eskimo art that can as yet be traced, 

 therefore, have been entirely in the line of simj^lification or even 

 degeneration. 



