NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRENCE    ISLAND COLLINS  9 
on  the  Barren  Grounds,  others  resorted  to  the  coast  between  Coronation  gulf 
and  the  Boothia  peninsula,  where  they  adapted  their  living  to  the  sea  and  were 
thus  enabled  to  spread  along  the  coast ;  this  is  the  so-called  Palae-Eskimo 
stage.  At  a  later  period  the  far  richer  Neo-Eskimo  culture  came  into  existence 
in  Alaska ;  it  spread  as  far  to  the  east  as  Greenland,  but  at  present  it  is  not 
known  from  the  central  regions  except  from  the  so-called  Thule  culture  which 
was  brought  to  light  by  the  archaeological  investigations  of  the  Fifth  Thule 
Expedition,  being  otherwise  obliterated  by  a  modern  Eschato-Eskimo  advance 
of  inland  tribes  that  penetrated  to  the  sea  and  constituted  tlic  recent  Central 
Eskimo.    [Birket-Smith,   1930,  p.  608.] 
Birket-Smith  identifies  the  Carihcni  Eskimos  with  Halt's  "coast 
culture  "  but  prefers  to  change  the  name  of  the  latter  to  what  he 
considers  the  less  ambiguous  term  "  ice-hunting  stage  ",  while  the 
"  inland  "  culture  he  would  call  the  "  snow-shoe  stage."  These  terms, 
he  thinks,  are  preferable  to  "  coast "  and  "  inland  "  because  certain 
tribes  whose  culture  is  representative  of  the  inland  stage  dwell  on 
the  coasts  while  others,  the  Caribou  Eskimos  specifically,  who  possess 
what  is  essentially  a  "  coast "  culture,  dwell  inland.  Since  in  Birket- 
Smith's  theory  it  is  ice  hunting  (fish  spearing  with  leister  and  har- 
poon) on  the  frozen  lakes  and  rivers  of  the  interior  that  originally 
gave  rise  to  the  Palae-Eskimos'  ice  hunting  on  the  frozen  sea,  it  must 
l)e  admitted  that  from  this  standpoint  the  term  "  ice-hunting  stage  " 
is  more  appropriate.  On  the  other  hand  Hatt's  general  concept  of 
a  "  coast "  and  "  inland  "  culture,  applicable  to  the  whole  of  the  cir- 
cumpolar  region,  loses  something  of  its  clarity  and  force  through 
the  introduction  of  this  additional  hypothetical  element,  so  that  it 
would  seem  preferable,  in  the  broader  sense,  to  retain  Hatt's  original 
terminology. 
While  Birket-Smith's  study  of  the  Caribou  Eskimos  resulted  in  a 
reformulation  of  the  theory  of  the  central  origin  of  Eskimo  culture, 
the  results  of  Mathiassen's  archeological  investigations  in  the  Central 
regions  pointed  in  the  opposite  direction,  toward  Alaska  and  Siberia. 
Excavating  at  a  number  of  abandoned  sites  to  the  west  and  north  of 
Hudson  Bay,  Mathiassen  found  abundant  evidence  of  an  old  and 
formerly  widespread  Eskimo  culture,  the  Thule  culture,  which  in 
many  respects  was  very  different  from  the  simple  culture  of  the 
Central  Eskimos,  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  region.  It  appeared, 
on  the  contrary,  to  be  much  more  closely  related  to  that  of  Greenland 
and  Alaska ;  so  striking,  in  fact,  were  the  resemblances  to  the  latter 
region,  particularly  to  Point  Barrow,  that  Mathiassen  decided  that  it 
was  in  Alaska  that  the  Thule  culture  had  originated. 
....  wherever  the  Expedition  has  excavated  in  the  Central  Eskimo  terri- 
tory ....  we  have,  below  the  modern  Central  Eskimo  culture,  found  remnants 
