898 keport — 1884. 



Section H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 



President of the Section — E. B. Ttloe, D.C.L., L.L.D.. F.R.S. 

 [For Dr. Tylor's Address, see next page.] 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 28. 

 The following Papers were read : — 



1. The Range of the Eskimo in Space and Time. 

 By Professor "W. Botd Dawkins, F.B.S. 



The Eskimos occupy the coldest parts of the earth in America and Asia, and 



their civilisation is of a rude and primitive type. To the south of the Eskimos in 



America is a dehatable land, belonging neither to them nor to the Hed Indian, 



between which race3 a feud exists. In Asia the Eskimos are on better terms with 



their neighbours. It has been asserted that the Eskimos are related tothe Red 



Indian on the ground of their language being agglutinative, but this is hardly 



sufficient proof. There are very conflicting opinions as to when they first appeared 



in America. Mr. Markham considers they were driven from Asia shortly before 



1349 by the pressure of Tartar tribes. On the other hand, Dr. Rink considers 



them the last wave of migration by which the American continent was originally 



peopled. It is probable that in ancient times they ranged much further south, and 



have only lately been driven further north. Furthermore, if we trust to the 



accounts of the Scandinavians who vi>ited America in the eleventh century, they 



must have had a much lower range, and this is supported by other facts. Thus 



the Eskimos are a retreating race, the remnant of the ancient possessors of a very 



wide area, who would have been exterminated but for the inclemency of the north, 



which has kept back the Red Indian. The Eskimo word ' Kavak,' a ' skin-covered 



canoe,' meaning probably a ' birch-covered canoe,' is, according to Dr. Isaac Taylor, 



derived from a primitive word common to the Yakut and Seljuk races in Asia. 



This agrees very well with the previous results as to the primitive range of the 



race. As to their range in time, Professor Dawkins connected them with the 



primitive cave-men, using needles and gloves, three and four, but never five fingered, 



and implements of stone and bone. They were a race of hunters and fishermen, 



and were fond of engraving reindeer and now extinct animals upon bones. While 



hunters, they were hunters of a high type. They were like the Eskimos in their 



disregard of the rites of burial. Thus, of the cave-men no perfect skeletons are 



left, probably owing to the prevalence of beasts of prey, and more especially of 



hyaenas. The least that can be said of the cave-men of Europe is, that they were 



exactly in the same stage of civilisation as the Eskimos. They used the same 



implements and lived the same life. In the absence of any proof of any two races 



of diverse origin presenting this identity of implements, weapons, and art, it is 



Tery probable that they belong to the same stock as the Eskimos. He therefore felt 



inclined to extend the range of the Eskimos in the Pleistocene age, as far to the 



south and the east as the musk sheep (ox), through Northern Asia and middle 



Europe to the Alps and the Pyrenees. 



