NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRENCE    ISLAND COLLINS  361 
throughout  the  whole  Bering  Strait  area  during  the  Old  Bering  Sea 
and  Punuk  stages  and  points  to  the  tentative  conclusion  that  cultural 
developments  elsewhere  in  the  region  were  approximately  similar  to 
those  we  have  observed  on  St.  Lawrence.  Regional  variations  within 
established  lines,  rather  than  clear  cut  local  patterns,  seems  to  have 
been  the  usual  condition.  On  the  whole  it  would  seem  that  there  was 
as  close  a  relationship  between  St.  Lawrence  Island  and  northeastern 
Siberia  during  the  Old  Bering  Sea  and  Punuk  periods  as  there  is  at 
the  present  time.  Direct  influences  from  the  Alaskan  mainland,  on 
the  other  hand,  seem  to  have  been  negligible.  We  know  that  both 
the  Old  Bering  Sea  and  Punuk  cultures  were  established  in  north- 
eastern Siberia  but  there  is  as  yet  no  evidence  that  the  former  extended 
as  far  south  as  Norton  Sound  or  the  Yukon  delta — the  sections  of 
the  Alaskan  mainland  nearest  St.  Lawrence.  There  are  numerous 
resemblances  between  the  Punuk  and  modern  Alaskan  culture  (art, 
the  elements  in  the  preceding  paragraph  marked  with  an  asterisk, 
and  others  listed  on  pp.  358-9),  but  since  these  same  elements  also  oc- 
cur in  Siberia  it  would  seem  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  reached 
.St.  Lawrence  Island  from  that  direction.  As  far  as  I  am  aware,  the 
rectangular  ivory  ear  ornaments  with  insets  of  pyrites  which  have  been 
found  on  Punuk  Island  and  at  Kukuliak  (see  p.  243)  constitute  the 
only  evidence  of  direct  contact  with  southwest  Alaska ;  these  objects, 
foreign  as  they  are  to  St.  Lawrence  culture  as  a  whole,  are  no  doubt 
sporadic  importations.  It  seems  fairly  certain  that  just  as  at  the 
present  time,  there  was  never  any  regular  contact  with  the  Alaskan 
mainland,  the  nearest  point  of  which  was  more  than  100  miles  away, 
whereas  there  has  apparently  always  been  constant  communication 
between  the  St.  Lawrence  Islanders  and  their  neighbors  in  Siberia. 
CONCLUSION 
In  his  classic  monograph  "  The  Archeology  of  the  Central  Eskimos  " 
Mathiassen  has  demonstrated  conclusively  that  the  Thule  culture  must 
liave  had  its  origin  in  the  west,  along  the  Alaskan  or  Siberian  coasts 
north  of  Bering  Strait.  As  we  have  seen,  these  regions  are  included 
in  the  range  of  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture  and  apparently  also  of 
the  Punuk  culture.  It  will  now  be  possible,  on  the  basis  of  the  St. 
Lawrence  finds  and  the  scattered  information  available  from  other 
sites,  to  determine  with  a  fair  degree  of  certainty  the  position  of  the 
Thule  culture  in  relation  to  the  prehistoric  and  modern  phases  of  cul- 
ture in  the  west.  In  the  foregoing  pages  we  have  had  occasion  to 
refer  to  a  number  of  Old  Bering  Sea  and  Punuk  types  that  corre- 
