Dated Eskimo Ruins of an Inland Zone

Abstract

The Eskimo culture is divided ecologically, Froelich Rainey says in a review of published accounts, into “the Arctic coastal zone in the area of sea ice” and “the sub-Arctic zone south of the maximum extension of heavy sea ice, in Southern Alaska and Greenland… . A third ecologic zone is that region occupied by Eskimo people with an inland form of culture which has been most clearly defined by Kaj Birket-Smith in his description of the Caribou Eskimo of the Barren Grounds northwest of Hudson Bay; but a similar type of inland Arctic culture occurs also in north Alaska. The prehistory of the inland zone is unknown, since no archaeological research has been carried on in that region.”The italicized lines point to a vast gap in knowledge of the Eskimo past. The inland zone remains largely unknown because of two handicaps to archaeological exploration: the nomadic nature of any far-inland hunting culture about the Arctic Circle precludes the possibility of large and permanent villages, and.organic materials disintegrate rapidly under the climatic contrasts of the interior.