Discoveries at Asiatic Gateway of American 2,000 years ago from Siberia

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18009, 20 November 1926, Page 17

Discoveries at Asiatic Gateway of American 2,000 years ago from Siberia

Scientist Finds Relics on Diomede Island, in Bering Strait, Buried under Eskimo Settlements of Fifteen Hundred Years, which may settle Long Discussed Question of Esfirno Origin By EARL HAMMOND. (Special Correspondent of the “Star” and North American Newspaper Alliance) (Copyright 1926 in United States, Great Britain and all other countries by North American Newspaper Alliance. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited)

NOME (Alaska), October 2. tiny dots in Bering' Strait, half-way between Alaska and Siberia, have given up evidence which scientists expect to settle the question of the origin of the Eskimo. The dots are the Diomede Islands, rocky peaks of mountains almost entirely submerged, and they lie less than twenty-five miles from either shore. The smaller inland is American; Greater Diomede belongs to Russia. Diamond Jenness, chief of tjie Division of Anthropology of the Canadian Government at Ottawa, who has been excavating during the past few weeks on both islands, has found harpoon heads and needle cases on the islands which he believes are more than 2000 years old. Hitherto it has been a matter chiefly of theory that the ancestors of most of the aboriginal inhabitants of both North and South America came from the old world by way of Bering Sea, for no really old archaeological remains had been discovered. Yilhjalmur Stefansson, one of the greatest authorities on Eskimo anthropology, considered that the oldest house ruins discovered by himself at Point Barrow could not be certainly placed at more than 400 or 500 years, although they might be much older. Mr Jenness’s discovery may lead to

remains, older still, or bring out evidence that the remains already discovered are much older than his conservative estimates. It has long been known that the Diomede Islands furnished half-way posts for traders from Asia, purchasing the furs of American Eskimos. That they have furnished a stepping-stone between the continents in comparatively modern times is a certain inference. Mr Jenness’s discoveries prove that they furnished such a means of communication a century before Christ. European Relics Found. Mr Jenness found beads, evidently of European and Chinese origin, which had thus come to western Alaska long before the Russians and historical whites. One of the great problems of American anthropology has been the diversity of American Indian types, which include most of the fundamental anthropological divisions, from the long, high heads and thin noses of the groups in North-eastern America to the flat-nosed, round-headed Shoshones. yie reached the islands from Nome, Alaska, after three days of rough weather. We were met by Mr Jenness and most of the Eskimo population. I ate breakfast at the collector’s dwelling, and gave him news of the outside world. It was evident that Mr Jenness was very ill.

After breakfast Air Jenness showed me his excavations, some of which he

had refilled, as the present village is built above the old village on the only level building space. on the island. I then got the following statement from Mr Jenness: —

“ I have made one excavation on Little Diomede Island, and two on Big Diomede. I found that the first ruin I excavated was of a house which had been built upon the ruins of a second that must have been at least 800 years older than the first house, though the first house must have been very old. On further excavation, I found a third house ruin under the two others, which would have been some 1500 years old. I aiso found elsewhere archaeological specimens which I believe to be even older than any of these ruins. However, their age was not possible to prove geologically, as I found them in landslides which had come down the cliff. “ I found harpoon heads and needle cases for some of which I believe I have scientific evidence to prove that they are at least 2000 years old. I found these undisturbed in the original location, and am, consequently, able to date them by geological and archaeological methods. This will add new value to previous collections made in Alaska now possessed by many museums all over the world, which have been of little historical value hitherto, since most of them had been gathered by Eskimos or careless collectors who did not preserve any evidence which indicated how they had been found, and, therefore, how old they were. Finds Light on Early Religion. “ I believe that in years to come harpoon heads will he used as a key to determine the age of Eskimo ruins. There is a type of closed socket which dates back 300 years; another with half-open socket goes back 450 years; while mortised or notched harpoon heads, with barbed flint blades along the sides, were in use at least 1500 rears ago. Further back still comes the simple type, which is much older. “ A complicated section of my findings is that of beads. I can prove that some of the glass beads, although they are undoubtedly European, came to Western Alaska before the Russians or other historical whites. Then there are Chinese turquoise beads which are frequently found. Some of these have brass associated with them or are covered with etchings. This throws light on prehistoric contact with China, and fits in with our studies of the original Eskimo religion, which has now been broken down a good deal by missionaries, but which it is possible to fine in certain places in a fairly pure condi-

“ The importance of the discoveries on Bering Straits as being on the New World is that this is the gateway by which the population of the New World must be supposed to have entered.

“While I have dated my findingr 2000 years back, I am really sure the) are far older, and certainly much older than I had hoped to uncover on this preliminarv expedition. However. I dc not wish to make any more definite statements, for I want to go slow anc to add later on rather than subtract. Although Mr Jenness was a very sick man, he gave me two more hours of interview before he, sailed for Seattle and his home in Ottawa, where he exw. *

pects to rest and recuperate. In thi: interview Mr J’enness said: - “ I am sorry my health is such that I was forced to leave my work unfinished; but f hope to return and finish > it, and to do other things I have laid out for myself along the lower Yukon River.” When asked what attitude the Eskimos took towards his excavations of the homes of their ancestors, Mr Jen- ; ness said that they called a meeting in their council house. Wales Eskimos Killers. “ Later a prominent man and two of his advisers asked me through interpreters to show my authority for molesting their homes. 1 knew that the Wales Eskimos were killers who had twenty white men to their credit. There was in sight a mountain covered with the graves of people they had killed. The.) r have a rude justice. Not many years ago a young Eskimo shot a missionary with . a whale-gun and then took his dog team and started for the mountains; but his father purj sued him with another dog team, I caught him seventy miles away, killed him and brought his bodv back to Wales.” In view of these things. Mr Jcnness intimated that he felt it necessary to use a good deal of diplomacy. He said that on the whole the Eskimos gave him little trouble, accepted his explanations in good faith, and gave him assistance of many kinds. Mr Jenness began his work as an anthropologist with Yilhjalmur Stefansson’s expedition of 1913-191 S. “ Mr Jenness is a thoroughly competent and very conservative anthropologist,” Mr Stefansson said, on being informed of the Diomede discoveries. “It seems to me likely that what he has announced is, in his own opinion, a very marked understatement of the case, and that later, when he has discussed his findings with scientific men and worked them out more thoroughly, he will make statements that are both more definite and probably more sensational than at present—sensational in extending the time farther back. “An important point on which he has expressed on opinion is whether he considers the oldest ruins found — hose dating more than 1000 years back —to be Eskimo. According to our view, the ancestors not only of the Eskimos, but of the Sioux Indians, the \ztecs and the Incas, as well as those of the Patagonians, must have come across Bering Straits. Of course, there 's a growing feeling that there may have been lesser immigrations to the iew world from the north-east by way of Iceland and Greenland, and also rom the South Pacific by way of Easter Island to the coast of Peru. Lesser ulditions to the ftppulation may have ome from China across the North Pacific, or even from Africa or Europe icross the Atlantic. For when a prelistoric and assumedly savage people •an reach Easter Island, 1400 miles iway from any other island, there eenis no logical reason to assume that imilar movements across wide oceans may not have taken place in other parts of the world equally far back in jjrehistoric times. •