348  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
pottery,  instead  of  being  intrusive  among  the  Eskimo,  was  one  of  their 
original  possessions.  In  this  sense  pottery  should  no  doubt  be  con- 
sidered as  one  of  the  elements  of  the  coast  culture  or  ice-hunting  stage. 
Excavations  in  Kamchatka  and  the  Kurile  Islands  have  revealed 
both  pottery  vessels  (cooking  pots)  and  stone  lamps.  They  seem  to 
have  been  contemporaneous  at  the  Kamchatkan  sites  where  Jochelson 
excavated,  so  that  we  have  no  way  of  knowing  which  of  them  had 
appeared  first.  However,  in  view  of  the  greater  abundance  of  pottery 
and  its  undoubted  antiquity  in  Japan  and  on  the  mainland  where  it 
was  part  of  a  widespread  Neolithic  complex,  it  would  seem  probable 
that  pottery  had  preceded  stone  lamps  in  this  region.  If  this  were 
so,  then  the  stone  lamps,  closely  related  as  they  are  to  those  of  the 
Aleutian  Islands,  might  reasonably  be  regarded  as  having  been  intro- 
duced into  Asia  by  way  of  the  Aleutian  chain.  The  presence  of  pottery 
at  all  of  the  known  prehistoric  sites  in  Kamchatka  and  its  absence  in 
the  Aleutian  Islands  would  itself  tend  to  preclude  the  idea  of  a  west 
to  east  movement  (from  Kamchatka  to  the  Aleutians),  for  if  this  had 
occurred,  it  would  seem  that  pottery  would  have  been  introduced  into 
the  latter  region. 
The  relationship  between  the  stone  lamps  of  the  two  regions  can 
hardly  be  doubted ;  and  since  the  Aleutian  forms  connect  with  those 
of  Kodiak  Island  and  Cook  Inlet  and  these  in  turn  probably  with  the 
stone  vessels  (mortars,  etc.)  in  the  nonpottery  area  extending  from 
the  North  Pacific  coast  down  to  California,  we  seem  to  have  a  con- 
tinuous distribution  of  stone  vessels  from  Asia  to  America.  It  should 
be  emphasized,  however,  that  the  cultural  continuity  thus  indicated  is 
strictly  north  Pacific — northward  to  and  including  the  Aleutian  chain 
on  the  American  side,  then  westward  to  Kamchatka  and  the  Kuriles 
in  Asia.  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  Eskimos  north  of  Norton  Sound 
(probably  even  north  of  the  Kuskokwim)  or  the  Asiatic  tribes  north 
of  Kamchatka,  were  in  any  way  afifected.  Here,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Bering  Sea,  was  an  extensive  area  where  stone  vessels  were  unknown 
and  where  pottery  was  the  important  material.  Since  the  Thule  culture 
in  all  probability  originated  in  this  region,  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  Mathiassen  is  correct  when  he  says  that  the  Thule  lamp 
and  the  more  rounded  type  of  cooking  pot  both  had  their  prototypes 
in  the  rounded  clay  lamps  and  pots  of  the  Bering  Sea  region.  This 
does  not  mean  necessarily  that  the  Thule  Eskimos  were  the  first  to 
make  lamps  and  pots  of  soapstone.  These  may  have  been  in  use  in 
the  eastern  Arctic  before  the  Thule  peoples  arrived,  for  Jenness 
presents  evidence  which  seems  to  show  that  the  Dorset  Eskimos  in 
at  least  some  places  manufactured  pots  out  of  soapstone  (Jenness, 
1933- P-  39-2)- 
