12  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
source  to  all  these  places,  southward  down  the  coast  of  Asia  into  Indonesia 
and  Melanesia,  and  northward  to  the  Chukchee  Peninsula  and  into  America; 
for  civilization  reached  China  long  before  the  Shang  Dynasty  in  the  second 
millenium  B.  C,  and  influences  from  that  country  must  have  streamed  in  all 
directions.  At  all  events,  it  is  on  the  north-eastern  shores  of  Asia,  probably, 
and  not  in  Alaska,  that  we  should  look  for  the  origin  of  the  mysterious  curvilinear 
art  of  the  Bering  Sea  culture,  and  in  the  same  general  area  for  the  sources  of 
other  elements  in  that  culture  that  appear  unique  among  the  Eskimo  to-day 
merely  owing  to  the  limitations  of  our  knowledge.    [Jenness,   1933,  p.  387.] 
While  Jenness  was  excavating  at  Wales  and  the  Diomedes,  Dr. 
Ales  Hrdlicka  was  making  an  anthropological  survey  of  the  Alaskan 
coast  from  Norton  Sound  to  Point  Barrow,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  was  able  to  obtain  a  number  of  examples  of  the  old  art,  most  of 
them  from  St.  Lawrence  Island : 
The  most  interesting  archeological  specimens  from  the  region  of  the  western 
Eskimo  ....  are  some  of  those  in  "  fossil  ivory,"  the  term  being  applied  to 
walrus  ivory  that  through  long  lying  in  the  ground  has  assumed  more  or  less 
of  a  pearly  yellow,  variegated,  sepia-brown  or  black  color.  These  objects  are 
known  as  yet  very  imperfectly.  They  are  scarce  at  and  especially  north  of  Point 
Hope,  and  again  along  the  west  coast  south  of  Norton  Sound.  Their  center 
of  frequency  comprises  seemingly  the  St.  Lawrence  Island,  some  parts  of  the 
Asiatic  coast,  the  Diomedes,  and  parts  of  the  Seward  Peninsula.  But  they  occur 
at  least  up  to  Point  Hope,  while  west  of  Bering  Strait  they  are  said  to  appear 
as  far  as  the  river  Kolyma. 
Some  of  the  objects  in  fossilized  ivory  show  the  well-known  Eskimo  art, 
with  geometrical  design.  But  besides  these  there  occur  here  and  there  beautiful 
specimens,  harpoon  heads,  figures,  needle  cases,  etc.,  which  are  of  the  finest 
workmanship  and  which  both  in  form  and  design  differ  from  the  prevailing- 
Eskimo  types.  They  are  examples  of  high  aboriginal  art;  and  their  engraved 
decorative  lines  are  not  geometrical  but  beautifully  curvilinear.  [Hrdlicka, 
1930,  pp.  173-174-] 
The  discovery  of  an  ancient  but  highly  developed  stage  of  Eskimo 
culture  at  Bering  Strait  opened  up  an  entirely  new  aspect  of  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  Eskimo  culture.  First  of  all  it  seemed  to 
weigh  heavily  against  the  central  origin  theory;  for  if  Steensby  was 
correct  in  his  assumption  that  modern  Alaskan  Eskimo  culture  was  in 
large  part  the  result  of  stimulation  from  outside  sources,  archeological 
investigations  should  reveal  beneath  the  later  accretions,  a  simple  stage 
of  culture  resembling  that  found  in  the  central  regions.  However,  the 
reverse  seemed  to  be  true,  the  older  culture  being  even  further  removed 
from  the  central  form  than  was  the  modern.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
this  ancient  Bering  Sea  culture  differed  from  other  phases  of  Eskimo 
culture  and  possessed  an  elaborate  art  style  somewhat  reminiscent  of 
the  Northwest  Coast  and  of  northeastern  Asia,  might  it  not  after  all 
