6  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
seafarers  and  fishermen  who  have  played  the  most  inciting  and  refashioning 
role,  even  if,  perhaps,  they  have  not  yielded  the  greatest  direct  contribution 
to  the  improvement  of  the  Neoeskimo  technique.    [Steensby,  1916,  p.  211.] 
Hatt,  while  recognizing  a  stratification  in  Eskimo  culture,  believed 
that  the  succession  of  the  two  layers  should  be  reversed  ;  that  the 
greater  part  of  what  Steensby  had  called  the  "  Neoeskimo  "  culture 
was  earlier  than  the  inland  or  "  Palaeeskimo  "  phase  (Hatt,  1916a, 
p.  288).  Hatt  felt  that  the  absence  in  the  Central  regions  of  certain 
elements  that  occurred  both  in  the  west  and  east  (the  seal  net,  urine 
tanning,  gut  skin  coat,  quadrangular  house,  throwing  board,  etc.) 
could  not  be  explained  geographically  even  though  the  absence  of 
the  umiak  might  be  accounted  for  in  this  way.  These  elements  must 
therefore  have  belonged  to  an  old  culture  stratum,  the  continuity  of 
which  had  been  disrupted  in  the  central  Arctic  area  by  later  move- 
ments and  influences  from  the  interior  regions  between  Hudson  Bay 
and  the  Mackenzie. 
....  the  northern  coasts  of  America  have  first  been  taken  into  use  by  an  old 
coast  culture,  which  undoubtedly  stood  in  connection  with  Palae-asiatic  cultures 
in  north-east  Asia  and  which  contained  just  the  elements  which  are  now  absent 
in  a  part  of  the  central  region,  namely  the  umiak,  the  fishing  net,  the  gut-skin 
shirt,  urine  tanning,  the  square  house,  women's  boat,  etc.  and  besides,  naturally 
a  part  of  the  elements  which  are  now  to  be  found  among  all  Eskimos,  such  as 
the  seal  harpoon,  fish  spear,  bird  dart,  etc.  Into  this  old  coast  culture  then 
came  one,  or  more  likely  several  culture  and  race  streams  from  the  lands 
between  Hudson  Bay  and  Mackenzie  River,  carrying  with  them,  among  other 
things,  the  kayak  and,  just  in  virtue  of  this  valuable  culture  element,  succeeded 
in  spreading  over  the  northern  coasts  of  America,  absorbing  and  partly  trans- 
forming the  earlier  culture  and  extending  the  Eskimo  language  as  far  as 
southern  Alaska  and  eastern  Greenland.  [Hatt,  1916  a,  p.  288,  quoted  by  Mathias- 
sen,  1927,  vol.  2,  p.  198.] 
Hatt's  views  of  a  cultural  stratification  in  the  Eskimo  region  were 
in  conformity  with  his  previously  expressed,  more  far-reaching  con- 
cept of  two  great  culture  strata  in  the  circumpolar  regions — a  coast 
culture  and  an  inland  culture.  Hatt  was  led  to  advance  this  hypothesis 
in  explanation  of  certain  facts  which  emerged  from  his  analysis  of 
northern  clothing  types  ( Arktiske  Skinddragter  i  Eurasien  og  America, 
Kobenhavn,  1914).  The  theory  was  further  elaborated  in  two  sub- 
sequent publications  (Hatt,  1916  a;  1916  b). 
If  this  theory  [of  two  clothing  complexes  of  different  age  and  origin]  be 
correct,  we  shall  then  have  to  reckon  with  two  large  cultural  waves,  which  in 
prehistoric  times  swept  over  the  northern  regions.  The  oldest  of  these,  now 
most  fully  represented  and  highest  developed  in  the  culture  of  the  Eskimo 
tribes,  did  not  have  snowshoes  and  therefore  could  not  conquer  the  vast  inland 
areas ;  it  must  have  followed  and  taken  into  possession  the  rivers  and  coasts. 
