Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/18

When Knud Rasmussen planned the 5th Thule Expedition, the Danish expedition to Arctic North America, one of the most important items on the programme of the expedition was an archaeological exploration of the Central Eskimo regions, particularly the areas N. and W. of Hudson Bay. From an archaeological point of view these regions had a claim to especial interest; no systematic archaeological work had been done there previously; but the material which had been secured by means of casual collections, particularly through the whaler Captain George Comer, was on the other hand extremely interesting; with this as a basis F. Boas^[1] and later on W. Thalbitzer^[2] were able to show a relationship between the old, now extinct Eskimo population of Southampton Island and earlier finds in North Greenland, whilst other features pointed westwards, to Alaska. In addition, these central regions had acquired great interest through H. P. Steensby's^[3] theories as to the origin of Eskimo culture. There was thus no doubt that an archaeological exploration of the central Eskimo region was an absolutely necessary part of the work of solving the important problems concerning the origin of Eskimo culture, its subsequent development and the immigration of the Eskimos to Greenland. It is the result of the Fifth Thule Expedition's work on the solving of these problems by means of archaeology that is to be presented in the following.^[4]

On the Fifth Thule Expedition the leadership of the archaeological work was entrusted to me, on the understanding however that the other members of the expedition would take part in it when their other work permitted. As matters turned out, however, I was unable to devote myself exclusively to archaeology in the brief summer; some