764 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



common instruments, such as flakes, and in a lesser degree scrapers, are of little value 

 in classification ; but where a whole set agrees, intended for various use, and some of 

 them rising above the most common wants of savage life, the argument as to race is 

 of considerable weight. It is still further strengthened by the identity of art. The 

 articles found in the caves of Britain, Belgium, France, or Switzerland differ scarcely 

 more from those used in west Georgia than the latter from those of Greenland or 

 Melville Peninsula. 



From these considerations it may be gathered that the Eskimos are probably the 

 representatives of the cave men, and protected within the Arctic Circle from those 

 causes by which they have been driven from Europe and Asia. They stand at the 

 present day wholly apart from all other living races, and are cut off from all both 

 by the philologer and the eraniologist. Unaccustomed to war themselves, they were 

 probably driven from Europe and Asia by other tribes in the same manner as within 

 the last century they have been driven farther north by the attacks of the Red 

 Indian. 



The theory that the peoples of the circumpolar regions might be the 

 descendants of the ancient cave dwellers of France has been enter 

 tained not only by Mr. Dawkins, Among other arguments employed 

 are (1) the apparent similarity of environment, and that as the south 

 ernmost margins of the receding ice, in glacial times, slowly moved 

 northward, the ancient cave people continued their migration in that 

 direction until their present location was reached; (2) the general 

 resemblance in the carved weapons and utensils of reindeer horn, and 

 also some of the portrayals of animal forms which occur thereon. 



From evidence based upon investigations by Doctor liink, and the 

 arch geologic indications noted by Mr. Dall and others, the Eskimo 

 are believed to have become a littoral people in America by expulsion 

 from some interior regions of North America, such expulsion having 

 been brought about through the northward expansion of the Athabas 

 can tribes toward the northwest and the Algonkian tribes toward the 

 northeast. Even within historic times the Eskimo occupied a much 

 more extensive coast line southward on the Atlantic than at present, 

 and it is impossible to conjecture what may not have been the southern 

 limits, in prehistoric times, with reference to the first theory above 

 named. 



It is believed by some geologists that as the glaciers of western 

 Europe gradually receded, the direction of migration of the prehistoric 

 people was toward the British Isles, the Scandinavian Peninsula, and 

 Lapland. The theory of their passage across to Greenland does not 

 appear to be supported by any prehistoric remains, such as one would 

 hope to discover after the recovery of the great amount of excellent 

 material indicating a peculiar advancement in the arts of fashioning 

 weapons and utensils of ivory and horn. Neither does there survive 

 anything in Greenland but the simplest type of artistic decoration on 

 ivory or bone, such as lines, dots, etc., which is characteristic of the 

 Eskimo everywhere, excepting in Alaska, where the greater develop 

 ment was due to other causes, which will be mentioned farther on. 



Neither is there apparent evidence that the Eskimo came across 

 Bering Strait, as the survivors of the ancient cave men of Europe. 



