Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-17
SCIENTIST PRAISES
ESKIMO ANCESTORS
Prehistoric Culture Puzzle
Solved by Expedition to
Behflnu Sea.

The first coionists in North America,
ancestors Of the Eskimo and the Indian,
were q people Of advanced primitive
culture.
This has been established, It was an
nounced yesterday by DIR. Walter Hough,
head curator of anthropology at the
National Museum, by the excavations
this Summer Of Henry D. Collins Of the
Museum stan on the northern end Of
st. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea.
Collins, now on his way back from
the greatest puzzles in American aa-
thropology, DR.. Hough said, after three
Summers work with pick and shovel in
the chill arctic fog. The archeclogist
In his last letter said that he had es-
tablished q culture sequence" for the
prehistoric settlers on ST.. Lawrence
Island.
DR.. Hrdlicka Discovered Culture.
The existence OF high primitive eul-
ture in Alaska was discovered by Dr.
Ales Hrdlicka of the National Museum
several years ago. 1t was characterized
especially by carvings On ivory. Collins
was sent TO St. Lawrence Island to set
an approximate date for its existence.
This island. DR.. Hough says, lies about
midway between Kamchatka and Alaska,
main roads followed in the original
settlement of North America.
Collins worked in the refuse heaps
or kitchen middens, as well as the
graYeyaFds. In the former, he found .
succession of culture eras represented.
One had been deposited on top of the
other as generation followed generation.
Actually, however. wind and weather
through the centuries had badly mixed
up the deposits, so that it was difficult
to tell which had occupied the bottom
strata and hence represented the earliest
settlement. The art objects, which have
been studied intensively at the Museum,
fall roughly into three divisions. In the
first, the ivory objects are decorated
oEnately with curved lines which tend
to make the symbolic figures stand out
paratively high form of art, indicating
many generations Of evolution in IA
V0rable environment. In the next
period the curved lines become fewer
and more crude. In the next they are
replaced by straight lines, geometric
drawings In which there Is little attempt
to depict q third dimension. It Is q.
case, DR.. Hough points out, Of devolu-
ton of art as people were forced to
compete with new, and probably harder,
conditions. 3r
Crudest First Believed Earliest.
When the ivory culture was first dis.
covered, some anthropologists contended
that the crudest represented the earliest.
They accepted. Or. Hough holds; the
common fallacy that progress Is always
upward toward greater skill and COM
pIexity and that the simplest always is
the earliest. Such theory, he says,
was rendered very doubtful in the pres-
ent case by the fact that the work Of
the Indians and Eskimo in the region
Of historic times showed no such artistic
mastery.
This Summer Collins has been able
to md the culture remains superim-
posed upon each other, the highest un-
derneath the others 1t removes doubt,
Dr.. Hough says, Of the accomplishment
Of the first Corners, whose settlements
on st. Lawrence Island represented one
stage of q gradual migration that must
have continued for centuries. Anthro-
biologists, says DR.. Hough, now are
pressed one step further back in their
search for origins, and must search for
the beginnings Of the new world cul-
ture in Siberia, task that probably
viii require many years and is impossi-
bic to undertake at present. ~ ~
The present hypothesis, as explained
BY DIR. Hough, is that race of mon
goloid people had. reached fairly high
stage Of culture lin Eastern Asia. but
gradually were forced further eastward,
By pressure Of population or scarcity Of
game, until they chine to the narrow
stretch of water which separated them
from North America. The next step
was obvioAs, since they were q hunting
and fishing people, loosely organized
and nfNlral migrants.
Left Some OF inheritance Behind.
But In the crossing they had to leave
some Of their racial inheritance be-
hind them. This. included probably the
any 0ghigrant people, they had to adapt
themselves to the environment-in this