42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



Anthropologists must keep an open mind, not cherishing dogma or 

 refusing speculation, for the truth still lies far off. 



Considerable literature (see Sellards, 1952, for bibliography) has 

 been comj)iled about these people. As yet we cannot positively indi- 

 cate their place of origin ; how they came to this country ; when they 

 first arrived ; whether there were various influxes or tides of migra- 

 tion ; and what has happened to these earliest of men into this country. 

 Koberts (1935 a, 1935 b, 1935 c, 1935 d, 1935 e, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 

 1940, 1942 a, 1942 b, 1943, 1945) , Sellards (1916 a, 1916 b, 1916 c, 1917 a, 

 1917 b, 1917 c, 1917 d, 1919, 1932, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1940 a, 

 1940 b, 1945, 1947, 1955), Sellards et al., (1947), MacGowan (1950), 

 Sauer (1944), and other students have attempted to answer a number 

 of these questions. The present climate of opinion is that Early Man, 

 formerly an inhabitant of Asia, made his way across a putative land 

 bridge before or during the Mankato interglac'ial period, where Bering 

 Strait now exists, on the fringe of territories occupied by large mi- 

 grating mammals. This crossing from Asia to Alaska presented no 

 problem, as a small lowering of the sea level at the beginning of the 

 Pleistocene converted the strait into a land bridge and may have done 

 so again later. 



Whenever man crossed over into the New World he might have 

 brought along with him certain technical knowledge, i.e., how to chip 

 and fasliion stones into tools, such as projectile points. Whether 

 these were his only tools of trade can be questioned, for it is certain 

 that he possessed a number of other tools of stones, such as scrapers, 

 knives, choppers, hand axes, etc., all of which entail certain cultural 

 linkages. Then, to think of a naked human being braving the rigors 

 of the arctic weatlier and traveling long distances without bodily 

 coverings is almost inconceivable. Ke must have earlier developed 

 the skill of dressing the pelts of his kill in order to fashion wrappings 

 for his body to keep the cold out and the bodily heat close to his skin. 



Simpson (1940, p. 149) (fig. 1) has attemped to explain the selective 

 filtering of mamalian faunal interchange between Asia and the New 

 World by stating: 



In the whole history of mammals thei'e are exceedingly few cases where the 

 evidence really warrants the inference of a wide-open corridor between the two 

 distinct continental masses. The usual sort of connection is selective, not 

 acting as a corridor or open door but as a sort of filter, permitting some things 

 to pass but holding back others. From the probable mechanism of such filtering 

 of faunas, it follows that these connections were usually of narrow environ- 

 mental scope and their continental abutments limited, drawing only on one 

 faunal zone of the continent, not on its fauna as a whole. In other words, the 

 usual evidence for such connections does not suggest "lost continents" com- 

 prising parts of two or more as they exist today, or even broad trans-oceanic 

 pathways, but relatively restricted links. The analogy of a bridge for such 

 selective or filtering connections is fairly good, and it is to them the term "land 

 bridge" most properly applies. 



