The Sadiron Lamp of Kamchatka as a Clue to the Chronology of the Aleut

Abstract

Recent studies of trait distributions by Collins, de Laguna, and Heizer, have, in my opinion, demonstrated a cultural connection between southern Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, and Kurile Islands. These circum- North Pacific cultural connections seem to have been established after settlement of all the areas mentioned and therefore are not properly a part of the problem of man's first entry into America.Southern Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Kamchatka, and the Kurile Islands form a zone or rim around the North Pacific shores of Asia and America. Along this rim of the North Pacific there seems to have been a drifting of traits and trait complexes, both from America to Asia and from Asia to America. And for the most part, the cultural connections of the circum-North Pacific zone seem to have been rather independent of the diffusions and cultural development of the Bering Strait region.