228 
If we examine the region a little more closely, however, we notice 
a few differences between the shell-heap remains in the northern 
part of the province and those in the south. The heaps on the Queen 
Chai’lotte islands contain grooved adzes and hammer heads that have 
not been found on southern Vancouver island or on the mainland 
opposite. Conversely, the shell-heaps around the mouth of the 
Fraser river yield several objects that are not known from farther 
north, such as tubtdar pipes, clubs made from the bones of whales, 
plain celts with the hafts in which they were mounted, and stone 
figures of seated human beings holding bowls in their laps. Ihidoubt- 
edly tliese differences have a certain significance. If we correlate 
them with the present-day differences in language, and with the slight 
variations in material culture and social organization that are appar- 
ent along the shores of British Columbia, we seem to discei’ii in the 
far-distant jaist a movement of Salislian-speaking jieoples from the 
interior to the coast, some down the Fraser valley to its mouth, others 
into the basin of the Bella Coola and the fiord into which the river 
empties. It is true that inland, in the valleys of the Fi-aser aiul 
Thompson I'ivers, the preliistoric culture revealed by ancient house- 
sites and graves fliffers markedly from any coastal culture with which 
we are familiar, and merges imperceptibly into the historic culture 
of the Intei’ioi* Salish tribes that still inhabit those valleys. But one 
can readily believe that a jirimitive people moving from an arid 
plateau of limited economic resources down to a moist littoral, heavily 
forested and aboumling in fish, game, and fruits, might abandon its 
earlier mode of life within a few" years and adopt the culture of the 
new’ tribes wuth which it came in contact. 
The Eskimo of the Arctic coast and their kinsmen along the 
shores of tlie Labrador ])eninsula now claim our attention. Historic- 
ally they w^ere the first aborigines in the New’ World to come into 
contact wfith Europeans, for w'e cannot doubt that they w'ere the 
Hkraelings encountered about 1003 A.l). by the adventurous Norse- 
men w’ho sailed across from Greenland to the coast of North America. 
Although ])ractically no archaeological work was undertaken in their 
territory until the tw’entieth century, it lias already yielded some 
rather unexpected results. The climate of the Arctic has exerted 
an important influence on the character, number, and condition of 
the ancient remains, for the absence of trees made the Eskimo more 
