NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRRNCE    ISF.AND COLLINS  II 
Whatever  may  1)C  the  explanation  of  the  Thulc  culture — whether 
it  was  in  reaHty  the  first  to  spread  over  the  Arctic  coasts  of  Canada 
and  Greenland,  or  whether,  as  Birket-Smith  helieves,  it  is  to  be  identi- 
fied with  the  later  Neo-Eskimo  culture— it  is  the  dominent  prehis- 
toric phase  of  culture  in  the  central  regions  and  since  it  has  obviously 
had  its  origin  in  the  west,  it  is  here  that  we  must  look  for  further 
elucidation  of  the  problem. 
It  was  not  until  1926  that  systematic  archeological  investigations 
were  undertaken  in  northern  Alaska.  In  that  year  Diamond  Jenness, 
excavating  at  Cape  Prince  of  Wales  and  the  nearby  Diomede  Islands 
in  Bering  Strait,  made  the  important  discovery  that  there  had  formerly 
existed  in  this  region  an  old  Eskimo  culture  which  was  ancestral  to, 
but  in  certain  respects  very  different  from,  the  present  form  of  Alaskan 
Eskimo  culture.  From  the  kitchen  middens  at  Bering  Strait,  Jenness 
obtained  a  large  number  of  artifacts,  including  some  of  "  fossilized  " 
walrus  ivory  which  were  elaborately  ornamented,  all  constituting  evi- 
dence of  an  ancient  Eskimo  culture  which  apparently  many  centuries 
ago  had  reached  a  higher  stage  of  artistic  development  than  any  culture 
previously  known  to  have  existed  in  the  Arctic  regions. 
We  seem  justified,  therefore,  in  concluding  that  the  shores  and  islands  of 
Bering  sea  were  at  one  time  the  home  of  a  distinct  and  highly  developed  Eskimo 
culture,  a  culture  marked  by  special  types  of  harpoon-heads  and  other  objects 
that  in  many  cases  show  the  most  skillful  workmanship,  marked  too  by  a  very 
original  art,  partly  geometrical  and  partly  realistic,  that  suggests  in  some  of 
its  features  contact  with  the  Indians  of  the  northwest  coast  of  America,  although 
its  roots  more  probably  lie  in  northeastern  Asia.  It  appears  to  be  the  oldest 
culture  yet  discovered  in  the  western  Arctic,  preceding,  at  least  in  Wales  and 
on  Diomede  islands,  the  Thule  stage  as  exemplified  by  the  mound  dwellings  at 
Wales,  and  by  similar  ruins  at  Point  Hope  and  at  Barrow.  Its  true  centre  seems 
to  have  been  Bering  sea,  but  its  influence  extended  northward,  and  conditioned 
the  form  of  the  earliest  known  sealing  harpoon-head  at  Barrow.  Subsequently 
it  passed  away,  but  perhaps  we  may  still  trace  its  influence  in  the  designs  on 
some  later  specimens  from  the  region  of  its  old  home.    [Jenness,  19^8  a,  p.  J'S.J 
What  was  the  date,  approximately,  of  the  Bering  Sea  culture,  and  from 
what  source  or  sources  did  it  spring  ?  These  are  questions  we  cannot  answer  in 
the  present  state  of  our  knowledge.  If  the  Thule  culture  goes  back  at  least  a 
thousand  years  in  the  eastern  Arctic,  as  seems  most  probable,  its  earlier  phase 
at  Birnirk  and  at  Van  Valin's  site  near  Barrow  may  quite  well  date  from  the 
early  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  The  Bering  Sea  culture  would  then  precede 
the  Christian  era,  but  by  how  long  we  have  not  the  faintest  clue.  There  can 
hardly  be  any  doubt  that  the  curvilinear  art  was  not  invented  ex  ovo  by  the 
Eskimo ;  it  reminds  us  too  strongly  of  Melanesian  art,  of  the  art  of  the  Ainu 
and  of  tribes  along  the  Amur  River,  of  certain  designs  current  among  Indian 
tribes  on  the  north  Pacific  coast  of  America,  and,  most  of  all,  of  the  patterns 
on  Aleutian  head-dresses.   Possibly  there  have  been  culture  drifts  from  a  common 
