Some Problems in Northeastern Archaeology

Abstract

In the exceedingly important symposium, “Man in Northeastern North America,” edited by Frederick Johnson, Frederica de Laguna has published a very interesting and elucidative paper, “The Importance of the Eskimo in Northeastern Archeology,” dealing chiefly with the relations between the Dorset Eskimo and the prehistoric Indians of the Northeast. The subject is fascinating, indeed, partly because the Dorset culture has a rather peculiar position within the prehistoric Eskimo cultures, and partly because even the Indian cultures of the Northeast coast in many respects have cultural traits alien to other prehistoric Indian cultures. In fact, the dissimilarity between Dorset and the neighboring Thule culture is so striking that the Eskimo origin of the Dorset culture has been seriously doubted by Therkel Mathiassen and Henry B. Collins. Collins, however, later agreed in the opinion, originally expressed by Diamond Jenness, that Dorset, in spite of the Indian-like features, may be an Eskimo culture.