NO.    I  ARCIIKOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRF.NCE    ISLAND COLLINS  329 
In  the  north-east  of  China,  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Korea,  in  tlie  east 
conterminous  with  the  ocean,  the  northern  hmit  being  unknown,  we  find  from 
very  remote  ages  the  habitat  of  a  most  interesting  people,  the  Su-shen,  who 
have  greatly  stirred  the  imagination  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  chroniclers.  They 
were  the  Vikings  of  the  East,  raiding  on  several  occasions  the  coasts  of  northern 
Japan,  and  fighting  many  a  sea-battle  with  the  Japanese  in  the  seventh  century. 
For  a  thousand  years  prior  to  that  time,  the  Chinese  were  acquainted  with  this 
tribe  and  its  peculiar  culture :  even  Confucius  is  said  to  have  been  posted  in 
regard  to  them,  and  to  have  been  aware  of  the  fact  that  they  availed  themselves 
of  flint  arrowheads,  usually  poisoned,  which  were  then  preserved  as  curiosities 
in  the  royal  treasury  of  China.  From  Chinese  records  we  can  establish  the  fact 
that  the  Su-shen  lived  through  a  stone  age  for  at  least  fifteen  hundred  years 
down  to  the  middle  ages,  when  they  became  merged  in  the  great  flood  of  roaming 
Tungusian  tribes.  They  had  also  stone  axes,  which  played  a  role  in  their 
religious  worship.  A  mere  supposition  is  that  they  belonged  to  the  Tungusian 
stock  of  peoples ;  yet  this  remains  to  be  ascertained.  They  may  as  well  have 
been  related  to  one  of  the  numerous  groups  of  tribes  occupying  ancient  Korea, 
or,  which  is  still  more  likely,  to  the  so-called  Palae-Asiatic  tribes  of  the  North- 
Pacific  region;  but  the  whole  ancient  ethnology  of  north-eastern  Asia  remains 
as  yet  to  be  investigated. 
Under  the  year  262  A.  D.  it  is  on  record  in  the  Annals  of  the  Three  Kingdoms 
that  the  Su-shen  presented  to  the  Court  of  China  a  tribute  of  a  mixed  lot  of 
harness,  altogether  twenty  pieces,  including  armor  made  of  leather  or  hide,  of 
bone,  and  of  iron,  with  the  addition  of  four  hundred  sable-skins. 
....  If  as  early  as  262  the  Su-shen  were  in  possession  of  bone  plate  armor, 
this  type  of  harness  cannot  be  explained  as  having  been  made  in  imitation  of 
Japanese  plate  armor — for  the  plain  reason  that  Japanese  plate  armor  was  at 
that  time  not  in  existence.  Metal  armor  in  Japan  cannot  be  pointed  out  before 
the  close  of  the  eighth  century. 
....  It  is  therefore  clear  that  at  the  time,  when  our  Su-shen  account  of  bone 
armor  is  at  stake,  the  Japanese  did  not  possess  any  metal  or  any  plate  armor, 
and  that  it  is  even  questionable  whether  they  then  availed  themselves  of  defensive 
armor  at  all.  We  are  hence  prompted  to  the  conclusion  that  bone  plate  armor, 
being  at  least  from  six  to  eight  hundred  years  older  than  Japanese  plate  armor, 
cannot  have  been  made  as  a  reproduction  of  the  latter,  and  that  Japan  cannot 
be  made  responsible  for  it.  Thus  the  whole  theory  of  a  connection  of  American 
and  Northeast-Asiatic  plate  armor  with  Japan  must  naturally  collapse. 
The  fact  that  the  Su-shen  were  already  in  possession  of  plate  armor 
of  bone  at  a  time  when  the  Chinese  were  apparently  just  beginning 
to  employ  iron  plate,  leads  Laufer  (1914,  p.  ^66)  to  assume  that 
"  bone  armor  in  north-eastern  Asia  is  as  old  as,  or  even  older  than, 
any  iron  plate  armor  in  China  or  Korea."  If  plate  armor  of  bone 
is  to  be  derived  from  some  foreign  source,  Laufer  points  to  inner 
Siberia  as  the  most  likely  place  of  origin,  but  on  the  whole  is  inclined 
to  the  view  that  the  development  of  bone  armor  in  northeastern  Siberia 
and  northwestern  Alaska  has  been  for  the  most  part  independent  of 
influences  from  other  parts  of  Asia.   The  comparative  cultural  isola- 
