80 
Conclusion 
Viewing all these facts together, the archaeological as well as the 
linguistic, we seem to glimpse a separate division of the Eskimo people 
living in olden times around Bering sea, one that was distinctive in its 
dialects, its material culture, and its art. On the one side it was in close 
contact with the Chukchee and perhaps the Kamschadal tribes of north- 
eastern Asia, on the other with the Indians of the Yukon and Kuskokwim. 
Something caused their culture to change, but their dialects persisted and 
underwent further modifications in different places. Perhaps there was 
an invasion of tribes from the north, bringing in a Thule culture that had 
evolved somewhere along the Arctic coast. But our information is too 
scanty to permit as yet of any elaborate theories. More excavations are 
needed on both sides of Bering sea, and, in the north, around Kotzebue 
sound and the mouth of Colville river, to determine the range, the content, 
and the sequence of each culture stage before speculating on their causes 
and relationships. 
