78 
on Little Diomede island. It is not only the designs on these specimens 
that are peculiar; many of them differ in form from those found in other 
parts of the Arctic. 
We seem justified, therefore, in concluding that the shores and islands 
of Bering sea were at one time the home of a distinct and highly developed 
Eskimo culture, a culture marked by special types of harpoon-heads and 
other objects that in many cases show the most skilful workmanship, 
marked too by a very original art, partly geometrical and partly realistic, 
that suggests in some of its features contact with the Indians of the north- 
west coast of America, although its roots more probably lie in northeastern 
Asia. It appears to be the oldest culture yet discovered in the western 
Arctic, preceding, at least in Wales and on Diomede islands, the Thule 
stage as exemplified by the mound dwellings at Wales, and by similar ruins 
at Point Hope and at Barrow. Its true centre seems to have been Bering 
sea, but its influence extended northward, and conditioned the form of the 
earliest known sealing harpoon-head at Barrow. Subsequently it passed 
away, but perhaps we may still trace its influence in the designs on some 
later specimens from the region of its old home. 
Although the writer’s excavations throw little light on any actual 
migrations of tribes from Asia to America, or from America to Asia, 
abundant evidence was secured that such migrations are not only feasible, 
but highly probable. On a clear day — and clear days are not uncommon 
in the spring and early summer — the inhabitant of Wales, from the hills 
behind his home, can scan the coast of Asia from East cape to Indian 
point; and the dweller on the Asiatic shore can view with similar ease the 
mountain at the back of Wales. The strait is not more than 50 miles wide, 
and exactly in the middle lie the two Diomede islands, stepping-stones, as 
it were, from one continent to the other. Each summer a party of Siberian 
Eskimo, or of Chukchee, choosing a favourable north wind, puts out to 
sea in a small skin boat, and in one day crosses to the Diomedes. There 
it camps, and in one day more crosses to Wales, and so continues along the 
coast, southeast, if need be, to Teller and Nome, or northeastward to 
Kotzebue sound. In winter the strong current that runs on the east side 
of Little Diomede island usually keeps open a lane of water that prohibits 
any passage to the mainland over the ice; but sometimes even this freezes 
over, and the natives pass safely from one continent to the other with 
their sleds and dog-teams. The traditions of both Chukchee and Eskimo 
speak of raids by Siberian peoples on the American shore, and the numerous 
remains of armour in the ancient as well as in the more recent dwellings 
prove that these raids persisted through many centuries. In historic 
times a well-known trade route started at Anadyr, where the Chukchee 
bartered their furs in the Russian mart, passed to East cape, from East 
cape across Bering strait to the Diomedes and Wales, thence up the coast 
to Kotzebue sound, where Eskimos gathered from all around to acquire 
the new goods from over the sea. If Bering strait, therefore, were not a 
constant barrier to either warfare or trade, still less could it have been a 
barrier to the migrations of small bands from one continent to the other. 
Pictograph 
The pictograph discovered on the north bank of Tuksuk river, 17 
miles inland from Teller, consisted of fourteen or more figures, each about 
