NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRENCE    ISLAND COLLINS  299 
related  in  origin.  Though  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  the  age  of 
the  old  Eskimo  art,  it  might  well  have  been  roughly  contemporaneous 
with  the  old  Chinese  style ;  at  least  there  would  be  no  serious  anach- 
ronism if  we  were  to  assume  a  relationship  between  the  two.  There 
is  less  certainty,  however,  that  this  would  be  true  of  Northwest  Coast 
art ;  and  until  we  have  archeological  evidence  of  the  antiquity  of  the 
latter  it  would  be  best  to  reserve  judgment  with  regard  to  its  possible 
afifinities  with  early  Chinese  art. 
If  we  assume  that  the  "  eye  "  designs  in  old  Eskimo  and  Chinese 
art  may  have  been  related.  Old  Bering  Sea  art  might  then  be  explained 
as  a  blending  of  northern  and  southern  elements — a  linear,  geometric, 
basically  line  and  spur  ornamentation  that  was  later  enriched  by  the 
addition  of  curvilinear  motives,  especially  circles  and  ellipses.  In 
just  what  way  and  through  what  intermediaries  this  might  have  come 
about  we  have  no  way  of  knowing.  Verification  of  such  a  hypothesis 
might  be  possible  if  archeological  data  for  the  intervening  coastal 
area  were  available.  There  may  have  existed  an  older  art  style  in 
the  Amur  valley  that  was  closer  to  old  Chinese  or  even  to  Old  Bering 
Sea  art  than  is  the  present  elaborate  spiral  ornamentation  of  this 
region. 
If  the  above  tentative  suggestion  of  a  relationship  between  the  ele- 
vated "  eye  "  motives  of  old  Chinese  and  Old  Bering  Sea  art  be  valid, 
it  would  mean  that  the  indirect  contacts  which  brought  this  about 
occurred  after  the  rise  of  civilization  in  China.  The  predynastic  cul- 
ture stages  afford  no  parallels,  for,  with  the  exception  of  the  painted 
pottery  of  the  Yang  Shao  culture,  the  Chinese  Neolithic  is  practically 
devoid  of  art.  Although  the  Yang  Shao  culture  possesses  several  im- 
portant features  in  common  with  Chinese  culture  of  the  Shang  dy- 
nasty— semilunar  slate  knives,  the  adz,  and  certain  vessel  shapes — 
and  although  the  time  interval  between  the  two  may  have  been  con- 
siderably less  than  a  thousand  years,  they  show  not  the  slightest  con- 
nection in  art."  Shang  art,  to  judge  from  the  recent  finds  at  An 
Yang  in  northern  Honan,  already  exhibits  in  matured,  though  per- 
haps classic  and  simple  form,  the  matlike  decoration  of  angular  scrolls. 
"  The  sudden  appearance  of  Shang  art  and  its  lack  of  connection  with  any- 
thing earlier  in  China  is  the  more  remarkable  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
recently  discovered  Ch'eng-tzii-yai  or  "  black  pottery "  culture  of  northern 
China,  of  Neolithic  age,  in  certain  other  respects  bridges  the  gap  between  the 
Yang  Shao  or  "  painted  pottery  "  culture  and  the  Shang.  In  addition  to  the 
semilunar  slate  knives,  adzes,  and  vessel  shapes  referred  to  above,  it  possessed 
oracle  bones  (but  without  inscriptions),  "white"  pottery,  walls  of  pounded 
earth,  the  horse,  ox,  and  sheep,  all  of  which  were  also  present  in  the  Shang 
(information  from  Herlee  G.  Creel,  manuscript). 
