The Position of Ipiutak in Eskimo Culture

The reason for the following is an article by Henry B. Collins: “Radiocarbon Dating in the Arctic” which appeared in the January, 1953 issue of American Antiquity. This is the third article in four years in which Collins comments on the interpretation of the Ipiutak culture advanced by Froelich Rainey and me in our publications on the excavations at Point Hope, Alaska, 1939-41 (Larsen and Rainey, 1948). Although critical regarding certain points in our theory on the development of Eskimo culture, his comments in the first two articles are on the whole objective and justifiable (Collins 1950a and 1951). His latest article, however, is written in a surprisingly sharp, polemic form which is entirely unprovoked and it contains statements which disclose that he has misunderstood certain important points in the Ipiutak report and misinterprets archaeological evidence. My aim is not to begin a polemic because experience shows that polemics are merely a waste of valuable time and print; they often foster ill feelings and seldom give positive results.