374  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
Pacific  areas.  It  is,  however,  the  style  of  workmanship,  especially  the  finish 
of  the  bone  and  antler  specimens,  and  certain  stylistic  features,  difficult  to 
describe  and  impossible  to  enumerate,  that  most  clearly  show  the  Eskimo 
character  of  the  Kachemak  Bay  culture. 
The  general  Eskimo  character  of  the  Aleutian  and  Cook  Inlet  cul- 
tures is  shown  by  the  presence  of  such  types  as  chipped  stone  and 
rubbed  slate  blades,  flakers,  adzes,  whetstones,  rubbing  stones,  pottery 
(rare),  drill  points,  toggle  harpoon  heads,  foreshafts,  socket  pieces, 
barbed  dart  points,  awls,  needles,  needle  cases,  spoons,  shovels,  wedges, 
float  mouthpieces  (Aleutian),  side  prongs  for  bird  darts  or  fish  spears, 
drum  handles,  pendants.  In  only  a  few  instances,  however,  are  there 
specific  resemblances  to  the  northern  types;  the  southern  forms  are 
often  distinctive  in  appearance  and  rather  far  removed  from  these. 
De  Laguna  lists  a  large  number  of  Thule  elements  occurring  in  the 
Kachemak  Bay  culture,  which  leads  her  to  believe  that  a  basic  Thule 
or  proto-Thule  culture  will  eventually  be  found  in  Alaska : 
Lastly,  I  suggest  that  on  the  Alaskan  mainland,  north  of  the  Peninsula,  traces 
of  a  Thule  or  proto-Thule  culture  should  be  found,  correlated  both  with  the 
Canadian  Thule  culture  and  with  the  First  Period  of  the  Kachemak  Bay 
culture.  From  a  chronological  point  of  view,  the  proto-Thule  stage  must  have 
been  pre-Punuk.  It  was,  therefore,  contemporaneous  with  the  old  Bering  Sea 
culture  on  St.  Lawrence  Island ;  or,  if  it  existed  on  St.  Lawrence  Island,  it 
was  older  than  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture,    [de  Laguna,  1934,  pp.  219,  220.] 
It  must  be  observed,  however,  that  almost  all  of  the  Thule  elements 
assigned  to  the  Kachemak  Bay  culture  are  simple,  widely  distributed 
types  that  would  be  included  in  a  comprehensive  collection  from  almost 
any  Eskimo  site.  Practically  all  of  them  are  found  on  St.  Lawrence 
Island,  in  either  or  both  the  Old  Bering  Sea  or  the  Punuk  material, 
and  with  hardly  an  exception  they  occur  also  among  the  modern 
Alaskan  Eskimos.  In  other  words,  the  Kachemak  Bay  culture  ap- 
pears to  be  no  closer  to  the  Thule  culture  than  to  that  of  the  interven- 
ing sections  of  Alaska.  I  do  not  see,  therefore,  how  the  occurrence 
of  these  simple,  common  Eskimo  elements  at  Cook  Inlet  can  mean 
more  than  that  the  culture  there  was  basically  Eskimo.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  might  be  expected  from  its  geographical  position,  the  Cook 
Inlet  culture  diverges  considerably  from  the  general  northern  pattern. 
This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  there  is  a  far  closer  relationship  between 
the  two  prehistoric  culture  stages  on  St.  Lawrence  Island  and  the 
Thule  or  for  that  matter  between  these  and  any  other  adequately 
known  eastern  form  of  Eskimo  culture  than  there  is  between  the 
Kachemak  Bay,  or  the  Aleutian,  and  any  other  Eskimo  culture  to 
the  northward.    This  becomes  increasingly  apparent  when  we  take 
