NO.    I  ARCHEOLOCiY    OK    ST.    LAWRENCE    ISLAND COLLINS  343 
east,  and  the  old  cooking  pots  were  retained  until  supplanted  by  vessels 
of  copper  and  iron. 
The  fact  that  a  rounded  pottery  lamp  is  the  characteristic  form  of 
the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture,  stone  lamps  being  entirely  absent,  lends 
strong  support  to  Mathiassen's  theory  (1930  c,  p.  598)  that  this  was 
the  original  form  of  the  Eskimo  lamp: 
....  the  lamp  is  an  .Asiatic  element  introduced  into  America  by  the  Eskimo, 
probably  at  first  as  a  round  or  oval  clay  lamp,  later  on  made  of  soapstone. 
It  is  of  interest  in  this  connection  to  observe  that  Alathiasscn  has 
recently  demonstrated  that  oval  earthenware  lamps,  apparently  used 
for  illumination  only,  were  characteristic  of  the  Danish  Erteb^lle 
culture  (Mathiassen,  1935).  With  earthenware  lamps  being  thus 
characteristic  of  prehistoric  culture  stages  in  northwestern  Euro])e 
as  w^ell  as  at  Bering  Strait  and  on  the  Ya-mal  peninsula  in  north- 
western Siberia  (Cernecov,  1935)  it  would  seem  reasonable  to  antici- 
pate that  fuller  knowledge  will  close  in  the  gaps  and  reveal  a  uniform 
boreal  distribution  of  pottery  lamps,  as  distinguished  from  those  of 
stone,  from  the  Baltic  eastward  across  Siberia  to  Bering  Strait  and 
Alaska. 
Birket-Smith,  however,  views  the  question  differently.  The  fact  that 
stone  lamps  are  found  both  to  the  north  and  south  of  the  pottery  lamp 
in  Alaska  indicates  that  the  latter  is  intrusive,  "  a  later,  perhaps 
original  Asiatic  form,  which  among  the  Eskimos  has  especially  adapted 
itself  locally  to  the  delta  country  where  stone  is  extremely  scarce  " 
(Birket-Smith,  1929,  p.  102).  Furthermore,  the  fact  that  the  Eskimos 
of  northern  Alaska  import  soapstone  lamps  from  east  of  the  Mackenzie 
indicates  "  that  the  people  in  Alaska  have  brought  with  them  an 
ancient  preference  for  stone  lamps  from  elsewhere."  (1929,  p.  102). 
As  to  the  original  form  of  the  Eskimo  lamp,  Birket-Smith  points 
to  the  naturally  hollow  stone  used  by  the  Caribou  Eskimo,  and  since 
unmodified  stones  were  used  in  the  same  way  on  the  Aleutian  Islands 
he  feels  (1929,  p.  103)  that  "  the  lamp  of  the  Caribou  Eskimos  is  no 
local,  degenerate  form,  but  a  really  constant,  though  extremely  primi- 
tive type  which  it  is  also  justifiable  to  regard  as  being  the  oldest." 
Like  everyone  else,  Birket-Smith  (1929,  p.  192)  recognizes  the 
antiquity  of  the  lamp  in  the  Old  World  : 
It  is  to  me  probable  that  the  bowl-shaped  lamp  for  illumination — not  for  heating 
— is  an  extremely  old  culture  element  which  with  the  earlier  layer  of  hunting 
culture  in  the  circumpolar  region  has  been  diffused  over  the  greater  part  of 
boreal  Eurasia  and  North-America,  but  which  through  the  greater  mobility 
which  has  accompanied  snowshoe  hunting  and   reindeer  nomadism   has   for  the 
