RESEARCH IN ESKIMO CULTURE l8l 



The Problem of Migration Routes 



In this connection it may be well to point out that all finds in 

 ruined dwellings on the northernmost part of the east coast lie so 

 near finds made on the northern part of the west coast that we may, 

 not least on account of the slight distance via the north coast between 

 the sites, be warranted in supposing that the east coast, at any rate 

 as regards its northern parts, was first inhabited by immigrants 

 coming round the north of Greenland. Most archeologists hold this 

 view; I myself, however, find it very hard to accept. In the course 

 of the Second Thule Expedition I traversed and very carefully ex- 

 plored the entire north coast of Greenland from Humboldt Glacier 

 up to De Long Fiord. North and northeast of Cape Sumner on 

 Polaris Promontory we found no indication of previous occupation, 

 though we went up into all the fiords and were particularly on the 

 alert for any such indications all the way up to our northernmost 

 point. The polar sea ice piles its enormous pressure ridges up close 

 in to shore, while on the landward side the inland ice leaves hardly 

 anything in the shape of clear, snow-free coast right up to Peary 

 Land. The pursuit of game is so difficult here that an expedition 

 with modern equipment is hard put to it to get through, and it is 

 hardly possible to suppose that the Eskimos, with implements of 

 the Stone Age type, on the march with their women and children, 

 would venture to choose the northern route through a waste of tumbled 

 ice devoid of game, when by going south along the west coast they 

 would be moving over excellent ice towards regions in which game 

 grew ever more plentiful as they advanced. That the climate, and 

 thus also the state of the ice generally, should at that time have been 

 different from what we find today is, to my mind, out of the question. 



Lauge Koch, who has been in these regions since I was there, 

 is of the opinion that certain features in the northernmost part of 

 the east coast might suggest that the Eskimos had moved from west 

 to east through Peary Land. His arguments, however, have not 

 convinced me, and I can still see no practicable route for a primitive 

 people migrating round the north of Greenland. The question is, 

 however, an interesting and important one, and it is to be hoped that 

 it may one day be definitively settled. 



The Eskimos coming from the west, first from Canada and later 

 from Alaska, evidently must have moved, some through EUesmere 

 Land, others through Grant Land via Lake Hazen; and, if we keep 

 to the west coast, where, in the Cape York district and also farther 

 south, in Melville Bay, house ruins of various types and ages abound, 

 it is plain to see that several different streams of culture must have 

 flowed along the west coast of Greenland ; and that the Thule culture 

 was one of them we may say with certainty. Where these different 



