This study is devoted to, brings new data to bear on, and seeks to contribute to, a solution for the problem of the prehistoric origin or origins of the Dorset culture in the eastern Canadian Arctic. I carried out archaeological field work for the National Museum of Canada, Ottawa, and was concerned primarily with that problem, during the summers of 1957-58-59. The analytic work was largely completed by June 1960. This study draws principally on pertinent data available up to that date, but occasionally incorporated subsequently available evidence. As so often must happen, the task of completing this manuscript, having done the analysis, was often delayed by the more immediate demands of other museum duties. So that the reader may be forewarned, if not forearmed, a history of the work on Dorset culture and the question of its origin follows as an introduction to this study.