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The Circumpolar Stone Age*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Gutorm Gjessing
Gutorm Gjessing*
Affiliation:
University Of Oslo
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Extract

IF one looks at a world map, or better still at a globe, one sees that Asia can easily be thought of as the central part of the world from which all other parts radiate-the Americas as well as Europe and Africa-whilst Indonesia and Melanesia provide a fairly good land bridge to Australia. In considering the Polar Regions it is important to realise that the Behring Strait has never been a barrier between the Asiatic and American continents. Eskimo live on a narrow strip of land on the Asiatic side, as well as along the coasts of the American Arctic, whilst those on the Diomede Islands in the middle of the strait up to recent times would sail in their skin boats to both Asia and Alaska in the summer, and travel thence by dog-sled in winter, Trade between the two continents has always been of considerable importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 27 , Issue 107 , September 1953 , pp. 131 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1953

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Footnotes

*

This paper is based on a lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh in the Autumn Term 1952. Professor Gjessing, who is now Professor of Anthropology at Oslo, refers readers to the following account for more detailed factual information: Gjessing, G., The Circumpolar Stone Age (Acta Arctica II), København,1944. The paper has been edited for publication by Ian R. Whitaker

References

1 Danish eskimologists, such as Thalbitzer and Hammerich, have however suggested a very remote relationship between Eskimo and Indo-European languages, with the Finno-Ugrian languages as an intermediate link.

2 Clark, J. G. D. : Prehistoric Europe : the Economic Basis, London : Methuen, 1952, pp. 18-19.

3 Ed. by Frederick Johnson (Phillips Academy) Andover, Mass, 1947.

4 Gutorm Gjessing : ‘ Some Problems in Northeastern Archaeology ‘ in American Antiquity, XIII, 1948, pp. 298-302.

5 Frederica de Laguna, ‘ The Importance of the Eskimo in Northeastern Archaeology ‘ ; Man in Northeastern North-America.

6 V. N. Cernetsov, ‘ Dvernaja primorskaja kuljtura na Kuljtur Ja-mal ‘, Sovietskaja etnografia, 1935, 4-5.

7 Unpublished lectures in Oslo (Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning), 1947.

8 A. M. Tallgren, ‘ Inner Asiatic and Siberian Rock Pictures ‘, Eurasia Septentrionalis Antiqua VIII, Helsingfors, 1933.

9 Frederica de Laguna, ‘ Peintures rupestres Eskimo ‘, Journ. de la Société des Americanistes, XXV, 1933.

10 Julian H. Steward, Petroglyphs and Pictographs from California and the Adjoining States.

11 Erik Solem, Lappiske rittstudier, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie B-XXIV, Oslo, 1933, pp. 81.

12 Asbjorn Gresheim, ‘ Finnish hiisi and Lappish sii’dâ ‘, Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen, XXX s., 293-302.

12 M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia, Oxford 1914, p. 36.

12 V. Gordon Childe, Social Evolution, London, 1951.