336  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
membered  that  the  Dorset  and  Birnirk  types  have  not  yet  been  fully 
described.  In  all  likelihood  a  number  of  forms  corresponding  to 
those  of  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture  will  be  found  when  the  Dorset 
and  Birnirk  collections  are  examined  in  detail.  Meanwhile  we  may 
point  out  the  following  types  that  are  common  to  Disko  Bay  and  the 
Old  Bering  Sea  stage  on  St.  Lawrence  Island :  convex  end  scrapers 
of  chipped  stone  (Solberg,  taf.  i),  cf.  plate  42,  figures  4-10,  16;  side 
scrapers  (Solberg,  taf.  2),  cf.  plate  41,  figures  15-26;  chipped  knife 
blades  with  tang  (Solberg,  taf.  3),  cf.  plate  40,  figures  18,  19;  knife 
blades  of  rubbed  slate,  with  tang  (Solberg,  taf.  4,  figs.  3-6),  cf.  plate 
39,  figures  14-18;  adzlike  scrapers  with  abruptly  beveled  edge  (Sol- 
berg, taf.  8),  cf.  plate  42,  figures  12-15  and  text  figure  16;  tanged 
projectile  points  of  rubbed  slate  (Solberg,  taf.  10,  figs,  i-io),  cf.  plate 
39,  figures  6-12;  the  small  slate  implements  with  rubbed  edges  shown 
in  plate  39,  figures  19-22,  resemble  to  a  certain  extent  some  of  the 
"drill  points"  figured  by  Solberg  (taf.  5;  taf.  6,  figs.  1-6,  9-12). 
In  his  systematic  excavations  at  Inugsuk  and  at  various  sites  in  the 
Disko  Bay  district,  Mathiassen  found  that  stone  implements  were  not 
especially  abundant.  As  to  Solberg's  "  Stone  Age  ",  Mathiassen  felt 
that' this  was  not  in  the  proper  sense  a  cultural  entity  but  merely  a 
part,  a  late  phase,  of  the  Thule  culture,  of  which  only  the  stone  imple- 
ments themselves  were  known.  Although  it  is  true  that  a  culture 
can  hardly  be  established  on  the  basis  of  stone  implements  alone, 
particularly  in  the  Eskimo  area,  it  seems  to  me  that  in  this  particular 
instance  the  typology  of  the  forms  may  be  of  significance.  If  th 
implements  of  the  "  Stone  Age  "  belong  to  a  comparatively  late,  special 
Greenland  phase  of  the  Thule  culture,  it  is  strange  that  they  should 
show  such  close  resemblances  to  those  of  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture, 
whereas  the  Canadian  Thule  culture  itself,  which  was  ancestral  to  the 
Greenland  phase,  shows  no  such  resemblances.  It  would  seem  to  point 
to  contemporaneity  in  this  respect  between  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture 
and  a  late  phase  of  the  Thule,  but  this  can  hardly  be  the  case,  for  as 
we  shall  see  presently  the  Canadian  Thule  culture  in  its  entirety  is  far 
more  closely  related  to  the  Punuk  phase  on  St.  Lawrence  Island 
that  it  is  to  the  Old  Bering  Sea.  It  would  seem  that  there  is  still 
some  factor  which  has  not  been  taken  into  account.  When  we  con- 
sider that  the  Dorset  culture  is  characterized  by  the  extensive  use  of 
chipped  stone  implements,  and  that  evidences  of  this  culture  are  found 
in  North  Greenland,  might  it  not  be  possible  that  some  of  the  non- 
Thule  types  of  the  "Stone  Age"  were  derived  from  this  source? 
If  this  were  the  case,  then  the  "  Stone  Age  "  as  described  by  Solberg 
would  represent  a  mixture  of  Dorset  types — or  special  Greenland 
variants  of  these — and  of  later  Thule  types. 
