Part 42

Chapter 422,828 wordsPublic domain

After writing of this to Doctor Mason, he kindly sent me a copy of the notes and observations on the discovery of the material by W. B. Van Valin, who was in charge of the excavation. The detailed notes will soon be published by Doctor Mason. The main information they convey is as follows:

The excavations by Van Valin date from 1918-19. They were made in six large "heaps," approximately 8 miles southwest of Barrow and about 1,000 yards back from the beach on the tundra. Two of the heaps were on the northern and four on the southern side of a ravine or draw formed by a drain flowing from inland to the sea. The Eskimo at Barrow knew nothing about these remains or their people.

Each of the heaps inclosed what in the excavator's opinion was an "igloo" made of driftwood and earth; and all contained evidently undisturbed human skeletons. The total number of bodies of all ages was counted as 83, and they ranged from infants to old people. There were many bird and other skins (for covers and clothing), and numerous utensils. The hair on the bodies was in general "black as a raven." Most of the bodies lay on "beds" of moss or "ground willows," or rough-hewn boards. There was no indication of any violence or sudden death. The bodies at places were in three levels, one above the other; but there was but moderate uniformity in the orientation of the bodies. There were found with the burials no traces of dogs (though there were some sled runners), and no metal, glass, pipes, labrets, nets, soapstone lamps or dog harness; but there were bows and arrows, bolas, and ordinary pottery. The cultural objects, Doctor Mason wrote me, resemble in a smaller measure those of the older Bering Sea, to a larger extent those of the old northern or "Thule" culture. There were some jadeite axes, indicating a direct or indirect contact with Kotzebue Sound and the Kobuk River.

Some of the bearskin coverings were "as bright and silvery" as the day the bear was killed (Van Valin); and the frozen bodies were evidently in a state of preservation approaching that of natural mummies.

Notwithstanding indications to the contrary, Van Valin reached the opinion that these remains were not those of regular burials, though offering no other definite hypothesis.

Desiring additional information about this highly interesting find, I wrote to Mr. Brower, who assisted at the excavations, and received the following answer:

These mounds are from 5 to 8 miles south of the Barrow village (Utkiavik). The largest that were opened were the farthest south, and seemed more like raised lumps on the land than ruins. No doubt that is the reason no one had bothered them.

The Eskimo have no traditions of these people. In fact they did not even suspect the mounds contained human remains until Mr. Van Valin started to investigate them.

While Van Valin thought they might be houses, I have always thought they were burial mounds, as there seemed no family to have been together at the time of death as often has happened. When whole families have died from some epidemic, then the man and wife are together under their sleeping skins. In these mounds each party was wrapped separate, either in polar bear or musk ox skins; none were wrapped in deer skins. If male, all his hunting implements were at his side, and if a female her working tools were with her, as scrapers, dishes of wood, and stone knives. The men had their bows, arrows, spears, and often a heavy club, for what purpose unless used in fighting I could not make out. At the head of each person was a small receptacle, made of whalebone, and in it or alongside was a long wing bone that had been used as a drinking tube. In some cases there seemed to be the remains of food in the platters, but that was impossible to identify. Most of the bodies were laid on the ground, a few had the remains of scrub willow under them, while only in two or three cases had there been driftwood planks under the bodies; these were crudely hewn with their old stone adzes.

There seems to have been some sort of driftwood houses over these bodies at some time, but they decayed and have fallen on the remains, which were in some cases embedded in the ice. Often before the frame had broken down earth must have accumulated and covered the bodies. In these cases the flesh has the consistency of a fine meal. While with those in the ice in some cases part of the flesh still remained. In both cases when exposed to the air they rapidly disintegrated, leaving nothing except the bones. By measurements they must have been a larger race than the present people.

When your letter reached here I at once started making inquiries as to what mounds were still intact; and I find that as far as known only two of the larger ones have not been opened. The Eskimo have been opening the mounds ever since they were found, taking from them all the hunting implements and other material and selling them aboard the ships for curios. It seems a shame that all this should be lost to science, and if no one takes an interest in these places in a year or two they will all be gone.

I have again made inquiries as to what the present Eskimo think of these people, but they tell me they have no tradition regarding them and that they do not know if they were their ancestors or not. In fact, they are ignorant of where they came from or when they died.

To date I do not know of any whaling implement being found with these old people, neither is any of the framework of these mounds made from the bones of whales. In some of the implements ivory has been used. The mounds farthest from the shore were about 400 yards, those that remain are closer to the beach. Some of the smaller ones are on the banks of small streams but never very far from shore. Undoubtedly, however, they were at one time considerably farther from the sea, but the sea is every year claiming some of this land, especially where the banks are high along the beach. There the beach is narrow and during a gale the waves wash out the land at its base. This is about all that I can tell you of these people. All credit for finding these mounds belongs to Van Valin.

Yours truly, CHAS. D. BROWER.

_The material._--The collection as received at the Wistar Institute was notable for its general dark color, enhanced in many of the specimens by dark to black remains of the tissues. There was no mineralization and but little bone decay, though the bones were somewhat brittle.

There is a scarcity of children and adolescents; there are in fact only two skulls of subjects less than 20 years of age in the collection.

The skulls and bones that remain show no violence.

The remains show a complete freedom from syphilis or other constitutional disease; the only pathological condition present in some of the bones being arthritis. This speaks strongly for their preceding the contact with whites. The surface series, though smaller, shows three syphilitic skulls. An additional fact of interest is the absence in both the igloo and the surface series of all marks of scurvy. Such marks are fairly common farther southward. Finally, none of the skulls are deformed, either in life or posthumously.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND MEASUREMENTS ON THE COLLECTIONS

_Age._--The first observations made on the igloo material were those as to the individual ages of the bodies. Such observations are necessarily rough, yet within sufficiently broad limits fairly reliable. The criteria are principally the condition of the teeth and that of the sutures. The possible error in such estimates is, experience has shown, as a rule well within 10 years in the older and within 5 years in the young adults or subadults.

One of the objects of these observations on the "igloo" material was to get some further light on whether the remains were those of a group that perished of an epidemic, famine, or some other sudden agency, or whether they represented just burials. The age distribution of the dead would differ considerably in the two cases.

ESTIMATED AGES AT DEATH

IGLOO MATERIAL

+----------+----------+----------+---------- | 20 to 25 | 30 to 40 | 45 to 55 | Above 55 ------------------------+----------+----------+----------+---------- |_Per cent_|_Per cent_|_Per cent_|_Per cent_ Males (27) | 11 | 15 | 41 | 33 Females (25) | 16 | 24 | 44 | 16 Mean, both sexes | 13.5 | 19 | 42.5 | 25 ------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------

SURFACE SERIES

+----------+----------+----------+---------- Males (21) | -- | 5 | 48 | 48 Females (14) | 29 | 36 | 36 | -- Mean, both sexes | 11.5 | 17 | 43 | 29.5 ------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------

The above table shows the data obtained, with those on the surface material from the same collection and known to be that of ordinary burials.

The results do not agree with the composition of the living population but are apparently near to what might be expected in burials. Taking the sexes apart, the series from the surface shows a somewhat more favorable condition for the men, but worse for the women. Taking the materials, however, regardless of sex, the proportions of ages in the earlier igloos and in the late surface burials are practically identical. This points strongly against the idea of the igloo remains being those of people who either died there of starvation, of an epidemic, of being smothered, or of some other sudden affliction, and to their having been just ordinary burials.

To arrive at something still more definite, if possible, I appealed on the one hand to the United States Census and on the other to Doctor Dublin of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., New York, for data as to the distribution of ages among the dead, using the same age-categories as in the case of the "igloo" material. The data furnished by Miss E. Foudray through Dr. Wm. H. Davis, Chief Statistician of the Bureau of the Census, are particularly to the point. They are as follows:

PER CENT AGE DISTRIBUTION OF INDIAN POPULATION IN ALASKA AGED 20 YEARS AND OVER, ACCORDING TO THE CENSUS OF 1900

+----------+----------+----------+------------- | 20 to 24 | 25 to 44 | 45 to 54 | 55 and over -----------------------+----------+----------+----------+------------- Males | 17.8 | 54.2 | 15.9 | 12.1 Females | 19.4 | 53.3 | 15.9 | 11.4 Both sexes | _18.6_ | _53.7_ | _15.9_ | _11.8_ -----------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------------

PER CENT AGE DISTRIBUTION AT DEATH (ESTIMATED) OF INDIAN POPULATION OF ALASKA IN 1900, WHO, HAD THEY LIVED, WOULD HAVE APPEARED IN THE CENSUS OF 1910 AT AGES 20 YEARS AND OVER

+----------+----------+----------+------------- | 20 to 24 | 25 to 44 | 45 to 54 | 55 and over -----------------------+----------+----------+----------+------------- Males | 13.2 | 43.9 | 21.3 | 21.6 Females | 11.9 | 47.0 | 19.5 | 21.6 Both sexes | _12.6_ | _45.4_ | _20.4_ | _21.6_ -----------------------+----------+----------+----------+-------------

There is a remarkable agreement of these figures with those obtained on both the Igloo and the Barrow surface burial material, except that for the two middle age series the figures are reversed. This may mean an error in the two respective estimates on the Indians, or it may mean that for these two ages the conditions among the Eskimo concerned were better than they were in 1900 among the Alaska Indians.

All the above, together with the details on the orderly treatment of the bodies, and the absence of such conditions as were encountered in the dead villages on St. Lawrence Island (Hooper, Nelson), inclines one to the conclusion that the Igloo remains, however exceptional the method for the Eskimo, were just burials.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

_The skull._--The most noteworthy feature about the Igloo remains is the marked distinctiveness of the skull. This strikes the observer at the first sight of the specimens, and the impression is only strengthened by detail examination. The skulls are very narrow, long, and high. They differ plainly from anything except occasional individual specimens, either about Barrow or along the rest of the west coast of Alaska, with the possible exception of a few groups of Seward Peninsula. They recall strongly the crania of Labrador and south Greenland. It is the Labrador-Greenland type throughout, men, women, and even the two children. It is a group outside of the range of local variation. It is a strange Eskimo group, either developed here in former times as it developed in Greenland and Labrador, and possibly the Seward Peninsula, or one that had come here from places where such type had already been realized.

The following data (the individual measurements will appear in a later number of the Catalogue of Crania) show the differences between the Igloo and the surface material, the latter both of the Van Valin and of the author's collections, and the valuable Stefánsson material, now at the American Museum, from Point Barrow. They need but little comment. They show clearly on one hand the wholly Eskimo nature of the Igloo skulls, and on the other their distinctness from those of the later burials, both of Barrow and Point Barrow. The vault especially is characteristic--narrow, long, high, more or less keel-shaped. The face in general is much more alike in the three groups; nevertheless its absolute height and breadth in the Igloo series are slightly smaller than in the other two, and there are minor differences in the orbits and the palate.

ESKIMO CRANIA, BARROW AND VICINITY

+-------------------+----------------- | Old Igloos | Surface burials, | | Barrow --------------------+---------+---------+--------+-------- | Males | Females | Males |Females | (27) | (25) | (37) | (36) --------------------+---------+---------+--------+-------- Vault: | | | | Length maximum | 19.25 | 18.11 | 18.90 | 17.77 Breadth maximum | 13.30 | 12.72 | 13.73 | 13.23 Basion-bregma | | | | height | 14.02 | 13.21 | 13.78 | 12.97 Cranial index | _69.1_ | _70.2_ | _72.6_ | _74.5_ Height-breadth | | | | index | _105.5_ | _104.6_ | _99.6_ | _98.1_ Mean height index | _86.2_ | _86.4_ | _84.6_ | _82.9_ Cranial module | _15.52_| _14.72_| _15.46_| _14.66_ Face: | | | | Height: menton- | | | | nasion | 12.4 | 11.21 | -- | -- Height: upper | | | | alveolar | | | | point-nasion | 7.7 | 7.01 | 7.89 | 7.18 Breadth: Diameter | | | | bizygomatic | | | | maximum | 14.2 | 13.08 | 14.34 | 13.16 Facial index, | | | | total | _86.9_ | _86.8_ | -- | -- Facial index, | | | | upper | _54.5_ | _53.8_ | _55_ | _54.7_ Basion-nasion | 10.70 | 10.18 | 10.61 | 10.01 Basion-subnasal | | | | point | 9.33 | 9.12 | 9.31 | 8.86 Basion-upper | | | | alveolar point | 10.45 | 10.13 | 10.39 | 9.85 Lower jaw: Height | | | | at symphysis | 3.72 | 3.38 | 3.95 | 3.27 Orbits: | | | | Mean height | 3.62 | 3.47 | 3.60 | 3.61 Mean breadth | 3.97 | 4.01 | 4.04 | 3.88 Mean index | _91.3_ | _91_ | _89.2_ | _93_ Nose: | | | | Height | 5.45 | 5.02 | 5.52 | 5.19 Breadth | 2.37 | 2.23 | 2.39 | 2.32 Index | _43.6_ | _44.4_ | _43.4_ | _44.7_ Alveolar arch: | | | | Length | 5.57 | 5.34 | 5.59 | 5.22 Breadth | 6.68 | 6.29 | 6.45 | 6.13 Index | _83.4_ | _84.9_ | _86.6_ | _85.1_ --------------------+---------+---------+--------+--------

Let us now contrast the Igloo skulls with those of southern Greenland from the collection of the United States National Museum.[200] The size of the series is such that they are nicely comparable. And to the two is added a small recent series (A. H., 1926, and Collins, 1928), from Golovnin Bay and Sledge Island (Seward Peninsula).

MAIN MEASUREMENTS OF THE BARROW "IGLOO" AND OF GREENLAND ESKIMO CRANIA

+--------------------------+-------------------------- | Males | Females ---------+--------+-------+---------+--------+-------+--------- |Golovnin| Igloos|Greenland|Golovnin| Igloos|Greenland | Bay and| | | Bay and| | | Sledge| | | Sledge| | | Island| | | Island| | | | | | | | Number | (8)| (27)| (49)| (13)| (25)| (52) of | | | | | | specimens| | | | | | | | | | | | Vault: | | | | | | | | | | | | Length | 19.20| 19.25| 18.97| 18.03| 18.11| 18.04 | | | | | | Breadth | 13.70| 13.30| 13.61| 13.36| 12.72| 12.98 | | | | | | Height | 14.08| 14.02| 13.95| 13.21| 13.21| 13.12 | | | | | | Cranial | _71.3_| _69.1_| _71.8_| _74.1_| _70.2_| _72_ index | | | | | | | | | | | | Height- | | | | | | breadth | _102.8_|_105.5_| _102.5_| _97.9_|_104.6_| _101_ index | | | | | | | | | | | | Mean | _85.6_| _86.2_| _85.7_| _84.2_| _86.4_| _84.6_ height | | | | | | index | | | | | | | | | | | | Module | 15.66| 15.52| 15.51| 14.87| 14.72| 14.72 | | | | | | Face: | | | | | | | | | | | | Menton- | | | | | | nasion | 12.70| 12.39| 12.38| 11.98| 11.21| 11.52 height | | | | | | | | | | | | Alveolar | | | | | | point- | | | | | | nasion | 7.90| 7.71| 7.61| 7.35| 7.01| 7.05 height | | | | | | | | | | | | Breadth | 14.29| 14.16| 14.05| 13.25| 13.08| 13.03 | | | | | | Facial | _88.9_| _86.9_| _87.1_| _90.4_| _86.8_| _85.7_ index, | | | | | | total | | | | | | | | | | | | Facial | | | | | | index, | _55.3_| _54.5_| _54.1_| _55.4_| _53.8_| _54.1_ upper | | | | | | | | | | | | Orbits: | | | | | | | | | | | | Mean | 3.65| 3.62| 3.64| 3.58| 3.47| 3.55 height | | | | | | | | | | | | Mean | 4.11| 3.97| 3.99| 3.92| 4.01| 3.85 breadth | | | | | | | | | | | | Mean | _88.8_| _91.3_| _91.4_| _91.2_| _91_| _92.4_ index | | | | | | | | | | | | Nose: | | | | | | | | | | | | Height | 5.58| 5.45| 5.24| 5.15| 5.02| 4.99 | | | | | | Breadth | 2.35| 2.37| 2.27| 2.29| 2.23| 2.20 | | | | | | Index | _42.1_| _43.6_| _43.3_| _44.5_| _44.4_| _44_ ---------+--------+-------+---------+--------+-------+---------