COMING OF MAN FROM ASIA — HRDLICKA 465 



The Bering Sea islands (barring the Pribilofs), the western coasts 

 of Alaska, the lower courses of the western Alaskan rivers, the Penin- 

 sula and the Aleutian, Kodiak, as well as other southwestern Alaskan 

 islands, are all rich in " dead " sites or villages. These may be found 

 at the mouth of every larger fresh-water stream and in other favor- 

 able locations. Many of the sites were relatively small, the settle- 

 ment having consisted of but a few dwellings, but some were rather 

 large, with a population that reached well into the hundreds. The 

 large majority have gone " dead " since the Russian times, generally 

 through epidemics, and show no material age. But there are some 

 in which the house refuse reaches very considerable proportions, in 

 instances as much as 15 to 20 feet in depth, and in which signs of the 

 white men's contact are either wholly absent or but superficial ; such 

 sites must go back for many centuries. 



Nothing whatever has been discovered so far, however, that would 

 indicate any great antiquity. The total of the human remains that 

 have become known to this day can undoubtedly be encompassed 

 within Avhat would correspond to the Christian Era, and mostly within 

 the last half of it ; and there has appeared to date nothing that would 

 give hope of much earlier discoveries. In reality, the more the con- 

 ditions in these regions are studied the fainter becomes the hope of 

 ever finding anything more ancient, unless this be through some rare 

 accidental discovery. The fact is that over most of the regions in- 

 volved the ground on which human remains are now found is of more 

 or less recent formation, and that older places on which man may once 

 have been settled have been washed aw^ay, or so covered with silts or 

 loess and jungle that to locate the remains is now impossible. 



The Bering Sea region as well as the coasts to the north of it are 

 geologically alive, constantly cutting and building. The present 

 coasts, the mouths of streams, the platforms suitable for man's habita- 

 tion, with rare exceptions, were not there 500 years ago, and 1,000 

 or 2,000 years ago the whole map of these parts was different. 

 Within the memory of living man whole sloughs (side streams) have 

 been silted up and wooded, whole bluffs or villages with burial 

 grounds cut away, while new channels, bars, islands, and dunes have 

 been built. Not even the rocky banlis and coasts have been spared 

 the attrition by frost, wind, wave, and current. It is now only too 

 evident that all expectation of finding in Alaska, through systematic 

 work, the remains of the early migrants to America across Alaska 

 must practically be abandoned. This is our main negative conclusion. 



But there is also much on the other side of the scale. 



Examination on the spot of the Bering Strait region shows plainly 

 that, once man arrived in northeasternmost Asia, the passing over to 

 the visible American side was not merely possible but inevitable. 

 The simultaneous conclusion is that not only was no land connection 



