NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRENCE    ISLAND COLLINS  33 1 
no  evidence  of  its  existence  in  prehistoric  times  in  the  .\leiitians,  on 
Kodiak  Island  or  at  Cook  Inlet. 
In  view  of  the  fact  that  wrist  guards,  new  types  of  ivory  arrow 
heads,  and  bow  braces  and  sinew  twisters — adjuncts  of  the  sinew- 
backed  bow — also  appear  for  the  first  time  in  the  Punuk  stage,  it 
would  seem  that  we  have  to  deal  here  with  the  introduction  of  a 
complex  of  elements  connected  with  warfare,  the  most  important  of 
which  was  plate  armor.  The  sudden  appearance  of  these  elements 
might  indicate  either  the  intrusion  into  northeastern  Siberia  of  a 
hostile  group  or  a  gradual  northward  ditYusion  of  armor  and  improved 
means  of  warfare. 
The  fact  that  the  Eskimo  armor  of  the  Punuk  period  seems  to 
have  been  identical  with  the  modern  Eskimo-Chukchee-Koryak  type, 
which  in  its  essential  features  so  closely  resembles  Japaneses  armor, 
points  to  the  conclusion  that  armor  did  not  reach  P)ering  Strait  until 
after  this  particular  type  had  developed.  This  would  mean  either  a 
time  subsequent  to  its  certain  appearance  in  China  and  Japan  around 
the  seventh  or  eighth  centuries  A.D.  or  an  earlier  time,  from  the 
third  century,  when  the  Su-shen  had  armor  which  at  least  was  of  the 
same  general  type.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  later  date  is  more 
probable,  even  though  the  cultural  impetus  did  not  originate  in  Japan. 
The  immediate  origin  of  the  Siberian-Eskimo  plate  armor  should 
probably  be  sought  in  Manchuria  or  eastern  Mongolia,  and  the  armor 
of  the  Su-shen  and  perhaps  of  other  east  Siberian  tribes  was  in  all 
probability  the  ancestral  type.  However,  there  seems  no  particular 
reason  for  assuming  that  plate  armor  had  already  reached  Bering  Sea 
by  the  third  century  A.D.,  when  it  was  still  apparently  unknown  in 
China.  Laufer's  argument  to  the  effect  that  plate  armor  is  older  in 
northeastern  Siberia  than  in  China  seems  to  be  based  on  the  assumption 
that  it  is  one  of  a  number  of  deep-rooted  traits  of  a  culture  complex 
possessed  in  common  by  the  Palae-Asiatics  of  northeast  Siberia  and 
the  tribes  of  northwest  America.  Because  the  culture  types  in  this 
part  of  Siberia  "  have  strong  and  pronounced  characteristics  which 
have  hardly  any  parallels  in  the  rest  of  the  Asiatic  world  ",  and 
because  "  the  entire  area  has  remained  purer  and  more  intact  from 
outside  currents  than  any  other  culture  group  in  Asia  ",  Laufer  ( 1914, 
pp.  267,  268),  while  maintaining  an  attitude  of  reserve,  is  inclined 
to  doubt  that  the  plate  armor  of  this  area  was  derived  from  the  south- 
ward. However,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  the  theory  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  plate  armor  in  the  far  northeast  with  the  fact  that  it 
was  this  same  kind  of  armor  that  was  eventually  adopted  in  China 
and  Japan  and  that  earlier  had  been  widespread  among  the  Turkish 
