Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 719 



Greenland; this question also can only be solved, when further ar- 

 chæological investigations have revealed whether this part of the 

 coast has had a corresponding stone-age culture. 



^With regard to the Ammassalik district I believe I have made 

 it probable, that it has had a fully developed stone-age culture con- 

 taining specialized forms of stone implements which correspond to 

 the forms we know from the west coast. As the present culture of 

 the Ammassalikers, or a little older stage, is in partial continuity 

 with the northern culture of the same coast, we can perhaps con- 

 clude that the same applies to the still older stage, which corresponds 

 to these stone-age finds at Ammassalik, which, so far as I can see, 

 are quite like the stone-age types from the northern fjords of West 

 Greenland. Unfortunately the archæological finds of stone implements 

 from North-East Greenland and from South-West Greenland are still 

 so insufficient, that we can frame no conclusions from a comparison. 

 No stone artifact hitherto found connects the stone-age of the Am- 

 massalikers specially to the north or to the south of the coast. But 

 many of the typical implements of bone and wood from this district 

 are in every way just as old as those of stone, and among them 

 there is no lack of connections with the northern culture of the 

 coast. 



Shortly after the submersion of the Norse colonies on the west 

 coast the influences from Europe, the modifications by the materials 

 and impulses acquired from the Norsemen have undoubtedly spread 

 northwards both on the west and east coast; along the latter they 

 have gradually reached right up to Ammassalik and were most 

 probably still at work when the European explorers first reached 

 there. We know how the Ammassalikers even in quite recent times 

 (between 1884 — 85 when Holm spent the winter there and his return 

 in 1894) have adopted new forms and modes from the South Green- 

 landers, for example, the kaiaks with straight stem-projections, the 

 hoop -shaped receptacles for the coiled sealing line on the kaiak 

 etc., and at the same time have given up the old forms. Among 

 the weapons discarded at an earlier period may be mentioned first 

 and foremost the bow and arrow, among the introduced the cross- 

 bow. In earlier times their culture has naturally had on the whole 

 a greater resemblance to the northern culture than now^). The 

 present Ammassalik culture has many striking points of agreement 

 with that of the southernmost West Greenland. This fact has un- 

 doubtedly contributed to the misconception put forward without 

 close investigation by some observers, that the Ammassalikers have 



1) Cf, also (1909) p. 340. 



