﻿150 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, 78 



much more peopled at any time during its existence. Here again, as 

 along the Yukon, the only sites available for man and which were 

 doubtless utilized in the past, were the beaches and especially the 

 " spits " or low sand and gravel bars reaching into the sea, or separat- 

 ing the sea and inside lagoons, for these ofifered man the best facili- 

 ties for getting at the animals and birds that he most needed for his 

 food. All that was actually seen was, however, recent. The old 

 beaches, the old flats, the old accumulations of rivers, the old lagoons, 

 are filled up or washed away. In places there may be seen three, four, 

 five — a whole series of beaches, and it is not known on which of these 

 ancient man did settle. In some places these older beaches have been 

 or are now being cut away. New lagoons have formed or are now 

 forming, and old ones are filling up before one's eyes, to be converted 

 into pools and marshes. 



Still further, entire regions during a large part of the year, that is. 

 during the open season when the ice goes north and again before 

 the new ice forms, are subject occasionally at least to violent storms ; 

 and what these storms can do to human remains the writer himself 

 saw. Eighteen miles to the east of Nome is a dead village, one of 

 the largest on that coast. Near this village was an old burial ground, 

 well known to some of the old white pioneers. One of these, who did 

 not know what had happened, advised the writer to go there to collect, 

 for he said he saw the ground covered with skeletal remains and 

 various objects placed with the dead. The writer had, however, already 

 visited the spot and this is what was found. In 191 3 there had been a 

 very violent south-wester — so bad that the cemetery at Nome itself was 

 washed out and the bodies were scattered over the country. This 

 storm absolutely washed off and left barren of human specimens the 

 old burial ground east of Cape Nome, and had it not been for the 

 depressions that still show where the ancient igloos of the village stood, 

 no one could possibly guess today that an important burial ground 

 had ever been in that vicinity. 



Such storms doubtless happened repeatedly in the past, and they 

 must have destroyed or covered many of the old sites. But many sites 

 and remains of man of moderate antiquity still exist there. Many 

 dead villages invite exploration and will repay excavation. And such 

 explorations, judging from the experience acquired on this trip, will 

 not be as expensive as might be feared. 



A few words as to the problem of Asiatic migrations. The last 

 summer's studies gave much definite light on this question. It so hap- 

 pened that upon reaching the upper parts of the Bering Sea we had 

 the three clearest and most peaceful days of the whole journey; and 



