Abstract
DR. ALES HRDLIOKA, of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, having completed his tenth summer season of archaeological and ethnological investigation in high latitudes, has brought his exploration of the far north of the American continent to a close, and is now engaged in the examination of the skeletal remains of the Aleutian and pre-Aleutian peoples, as well as of the specimens of the material culture of the latter, collected in the last three years. Dr. Hrdlic'ka gave a summary of his results in his annual Smithsonian lecture, which was delivered in the auditorium of the New National Museum, Washington, on November 8. He then pointed out that when he entered upon this investigation ten years ago, it was supposed that only two peoples lived in this part of the globe, the Eskimo with the Aleut and the Indians. Now six races are recognized. There are two distinct types of Indians and two types of Eskimo, while it is established that the Aleut are distinct from the Eskimo. The most interesting discovery made by Dr. Hrdlic'ka is, however, the sixth race, the pre-Aleut people, whom he regards as close to the Shoshonean and the Cali-fornian Indian. Some of them, though not all, practised mummification, and it may be that the Aleut followed them in this practice, as in a few places mummies of the two races have been found together. The remains of the older people, the pre-Aleuts, show close affinities with the peoples who were discovered in the lowest levels of the old village site on Kodiak island; but whereas those peoples appear to have been exterminated in a great slaughter, the pre-Aleuts appear to have escaped this fate, although as a distinct people they have disappeared. The evidence which has been gathered points to the pre-Aleuts having reached these islands from Alaska, whither their ancestors had migrated at a very much earlier date from Asia. Dr. Hrdlicka dates their coming to the Aleutians at approximately two thousand years ago.
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Early Races of the Far North in America. Nature 142, 947 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142947b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142947b0