In the course of his explorations
Dr. Hrdlieka went as far north as
Point Barrow’ on the Arctic coast of
Alaska and the farthest north settle
ment under the American flag.
lie has brought back to Washing
ton one of the largest additions ever
made to the anthropological and eth
nological collections of the museum.
These include numerous articles that
shed much light on the earlier days
of the human race on this continent.
Alaska Key to Problem.
Dr. Hrdlieka visited Alaska as the
key to a problem that lias caused con
siderable controversy at times —how
man got to North America. In com
mon with most anthropologists who
have studied the problem he haH held
that the North American Indians
were of Asiatic origin and that the
most probable course of their migra
tion was across Bering Strait, where
the headlands of the two continents
are almost in sight of each other on
a clear day.
The theory has been that it would
not have been beyond the ability of
a primitive people, seeking new hunt
ing grounds, to have pushed their
boats from island to island until they
arrived on the North American coast.
From that time on, with successive
parties following in the steps of the
first, the peopling of a continent was
simply a matter of expanding south
ward.
Dr. Hrdlieka sought also this Sum
mer to trace the courses of this mi
gration into the interior and south
ward.
He succeeded in gathering an im
mense amount of new data this Sum
mer, much of which he will bring
out at a meeting of the Smithsonian
Institution staff in a few days and
which will constitute a permanent
and valuable contribution to the sci
ence of anthropology.
