138 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



lie between it and the sea. Its position would thus indicate that it had 

 been built later than Miyowaghameet and that during- the time of its 

 occupancy and after its abandonment the sea had receded still fur- 

 ther, piling up still more gravel ridges. 



Toward the end of the spit, behind the present village is the third 

 old village, Seklowaghayaget, but its position with reference to the 

 old beach lines is not so clear. Finally, immediately to the south of 

 the present village are the ruins of the semi-subterranean houses of 

 wood and whale bones, the last of which were occupied as late as 40 

 years ago. 



In the kitchen-middens and house pits of these old villages we and 

 our Eskimo helpers excavated from June 20 to October 20. Our 

 method of excavation was to sink pits 12 feet square at various places 

 in the middens, taking them down in sections of a few inches thick- 

 ness as the frozen ground slowly thawed upon exposure to the atmos- 

 phere. As the work progressed we began to uncover a great variety 

 of objects — ivory, bone, stone, pottery, wood, baleen — representing 

 the hunting implements, tools, household equipment, ornaments and 

 other possessions of a people who were seen to have been uncommonly 

 skillful in shaping to their ends the material resources at their com- 

 mand. The objects excavated number several thousand, and repre- 

 sent a complete cross section of Eskimo culture at this one spot from 

 the earliest known period down to the present. 



We had been excavating about a week when almost by accident we 

 made a discovery that added greatly to the significance of these old 

 villages as landmarks of Eskimo chronology. Just back of Miyo- 

 waghameet, on the lower part of the mountain slope, we found a site 

 of pure Old Bering Sea culture. The trail to the top of the mountain 

 passed over the surface of this old village and although many genera- 

 tions of Eskimo had followed it not one of those now living had sus- 

 pected that anything lay beneath the moss and rocks. But this is easy 

 to understand for the surface showed not the slightest irregularity, nor 

 were there any timbers or whale bones or shallow depressions of house 

 pits, such as usually mark the sites of old Eskimo villages. Only at 

 one place was any refuse visible and this a small patch less than two 

 feet square which by weathering had become exposed in a rock crev- 

 ice. The rest of the midden for many yards around was so completely 

 covered with moss and sod and fallen rocks that it blended perfectly 

 into the hillside. As our work progressed it became clear that this 

 site had been both settled and abandoned within the period of the Old 

 Bering Sea culture, for from top to bottom of the small midden the 

 decorated objects — about 30 — were all of the Old Bering Sea style 



