456 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 193 3 



cliffs of granite. From late fall until spring the shores of the 

 island are locked in ice. 



The island is now treeless, and vegetation is of the usual Arctic 

 variety, consisting of dwarf willows, mosses, grasses, and flowering 

 plants. In Tertiary time, however, there existed a markedly dif- 

 ferent assemblage of plants — the giant redwood or sequoia, poplar, 

 rhododendron, sycamore, and alder — as shown by fossil remains 

 found in coal and shale outcrops at several places.'^ 



The present inhabitants of St. Lawrence Island are Eskimos be- 

 longing to the Yuit or Siberian group. They number some 400 

 individuals, most of them living at the village of Gambell (Sevuo- 

 kuk) at the northwestern end of the island and at Sevunga, 30 

 miles to the eastward. They represent the remnants of a consider- 

 ably larger population, which was greatly reduced by a severe fam- 

 ine and epidemic in 1878-79. 



Numerous old village sites are found at the now abandoned eastern 

 end of the island as well as along the north and west coasts. At 

 certain of these old sites the Smithsonian Institution during the 

 summers of 1928-31 has carried on excavations which have thrown 

 considerable light on successive culture stages and have made pos- 

 sible the establishment of a chronology which promises to be appli- 

 cable for a large part of northern Alaska and northeastern Siberia. 



In 1928 a period of 2 months was devoted to excavations at an 

 ancient village site on Punuk (Poongook), a small island 4 miles 

 off the eastern end of St. Lawrence. Although today there are no 

 Eskimos living within 100 miles of Punuk, the huge kitchenmidden 

 marking the site of the old village is conclusive evidence that for 

 many years this barren little island had supported a sizable Eskimo 

 population. The midden is 400 feet long and has a visible height 

 of about 10 feet, but excavation proved that it extended 6 feet below 

 the present beach, giving it a total height — or depth — of 16 feet 

 (pi. 2, fig. 1). In 1929 excavations were made at another large 

 abandoned site at Cape Kialegak, 30 miles to the southward (pi. 2, 

 fig. 2). 



Ordinarily the excavation of such refuse heaps would be a compar- 

 atively simple matter. In northern Alaska, however, a particular 

 obstacle to excavation is offered by the frozen ground, which even 

 during the summer thaws out only on the surface. Artificial methods 

 of thawing the ground by the use of steam or cold water such as 

 are employed in mining, are not only expensive and usually imprac- 

 ticable but have the added disadvantage of being destructive to the 

 more fragile objects. The most practical method has been found to 



' Chaney, Ralph W., A Sequoia Forest of Tertiary Age on St. Lawrence Island, Science, 

 vol. 72, pp. 653-654, Dec. 26, 1930. 



