Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/504
tain directions it is at a more primitive stage than even the Naujan find. This is particularly true of the arrow heads: at Malerualik most of the arrow heads have one powerful barb like the Alaska arrows; at Naujan most of the arrows have the remnants of a barb; in the later Thule finds, as among the present Central Eskimos, the arrows have no barbs at all. The owner marks are also a feature that is known in the west, but not at Naujan; the same is true of all the new objects found. These factors might point in the direction that the Malerualik find is older, or at any rate is at an earlier phase, than the Naujan find, to which it is otherwise closely related.
If we look at the position of the settlement, this may quite well point in the same direction: the Malerualik ruins lie between 15 and 22 m above s. l., whereas the Naujan settlement lies between 12 and 20 m above s. l.
The Malerualik find gives a poor impression as compared with the Naujan find; the forms of the implements are on the whole poorer, the workmanship less skilful, the rich ornamentation which decorates many of the specimens of the Naujan find is absent. This, however, may be presumed to be due to the geographical conditions: the Eskimos at Malerualik have to a much greater extent than the other Thule Eskimos based their lives upon caribou hunting, whereas marine animal hunting has retired into the background. Seals have been hunted, and also whales, but not nearly so much as in the more easterly districts; thus whalebone and baleen could only be used to a small extent for implements. And in addition, there are no walruses and narwhals at all, so that they have been cut off from using walrus and narwhal tusk for implements. This, in combination with the absence of suitable stone for knife and weapon blades, gives the culture its poor stamp. The implements had mainly to be made of antler, which both yielded less well-formed shapes and did not adapt itself to ornamentation; most of the ornamented objects in the Thule finds are of the beautiful walrus tusk.
Thus we see in the Malerualik find a Thule culture adapted to poorer surroundings, without the great wealth of large marine mammals which characterises the other finds, a culture mainly founded upon caribou hunting. But despite this poor character the Thule stamp is unmistakeable; the types of implements are the same as those used by the whalers at Naujan, far different from those now used by the Netsilik Eskimos in these regions.