378  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
to  Kamchatka  would  remain  an  open  question.  The  fact  that  these 
elements  are  strongest  among  the  Kamchadal  and  Koryak  would  seem 
to  favor  the  southern  route,  but  an  adequate  explanation  would  require 
a  more  thorough  analysis  of  Alaskan  mythology  than  has  as  yet  been 
made.  Whatever  the  conditions  may  have  been  with  regard  to  myth- 
ology, there  seems  little  likelihood  of  Indian  elements  of  material 
culture  having  been  carried  back  into  Siberia  by  way  of  Bering  Strait 
after  the  Eskimos  had  become  established  there,  for  the  Old  Bering 
Sea  culture,  elaborate  though  it  is,  is  in  every  sense  Eskimo  and,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  art,  shows  few  significant  resemblances  to 
Northwest  Indian  culture.  In  the  Aleutians,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
find  an  aberrant  form  of  Eskimo  culture  which  embodied  a  number  of 
important  elements  characteristic  of  south  Alaskan  culture  generally, 
and  when  we  observe  that  some  of  these  have  succeeded  in  gaining  a 
foothold  in  Kamchatka  and  the  regions  immediately  adjacent,  it  seems 
plausible  to  regard  them  as  American  elements  which  drifted  into  Asia 
over  the  Aleutian  chain. 
Although  on  theoretical  grounds  we  are  forced  to  assume  that  man 
originally  entered  the  American  continent  at  Bering  Strait,  it  must  be 
emphasized  that  archeological  work  in  this  region  has  revealed  as 
yet  no  trace  of  these  earliest  migrants.  The  excavations  at  St.  Law- 
rence Island  and  Bering  Strait  have  pushed  the  Eskimo  far  back  into 
the  past,  but  they  have  revealed  no  evidence  of  any  pre-Eskimo  cultural 
remains.  We  have  seen  that  changes  in  shore  line  topography  have 
taken  place  within  the  past  few  centuries ;  through  subsidence  of  the 
coast  line  at  the  eastern  end  of  St.  Lawrence  Island  some  Eskimo 
sites  of  the  intermediate  or  Punuk  period  now  lie  as  much  as  6  feet 
below  sea  level,  whereas  on  the  other  hand  there  is  evidence  of  a 
rather  extensive  building  up  of  the  coast  line  at  the  northwestern 
end  of  the  Island  since  the  time  of  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture.  When 
we  consider  that  the  oldest  site  at  Gambell  was  so  completely  hidden 
from  view  that  the  modern  Eskimos  did  not  suspect  its  existence,  even 
though  they  had  walked  over  it  countless  times,  we  realize  that  the 
discovery  of  still  older  sites  will  be  no  simple  matter.  At  the  same 
time,  the  knowledge  which  has  been  gained  of  these  relatively  recent 
physiographic  changes  and  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  oldest 
Eskimo  remains  are  found,  provides  a  necessary  background  for  a 
systematic  approach  to  the  more  fundamental  problem  of  pre-Eskimo 
migrations. 
The  investigations  at  Gambell  have  provided  full  confirmation  of 
the  chronological  position  of  the  Old  Bering  Sea  culture  as  originally 
