36  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
every  second  or  third  day.  Because  of  the  slow  rate  of  thawing  in 
the  more  productive  sections  of  the  middens,  we  removed  at  each 
digging  all  the  soil  that  had  thawed  since  the  previous  digging.  Con- 
sequently, the  layers  varied  somewhat,  some  being  only  i  or  2  inches 
thick,  others  as  much  as  6  inches,  or  even  a  little  more  in  cuts  where 
there  was  much  gravel  and  little  cultural  material.  This  procedure 
was  found  to  be  simpler  and  more  practical,  under  the  circumstances, 
than  the  more  ideal  method  of  removing  the  material  in  layers  of 
exactly  the  same  thickness.  By  following  the  latter  method  it  would 
often  have  been  necessary  to  leave  a  layer  unfinished  for  a  day  or 
more  since  the  frozen  ground  would  prevent  it  being  taken  down  to 
the  exact  depth  required.  Hand  trowels  were  used  exclusively  for 
the  actual  excavating,  shovels  for  throwing  out  the  worked  over  ma- 
terial, and  picks  only  for  cutting  away  the  surface  layer  of  sod. 
Hillside  Site 
Fifty  yards  to  the  southeast  of  Miyowagh,  on  the  lower  slope  of 
the  hillside  at  an  elevation  of  about  30  feet,  we  found  the  ruins  of 
a  buried  village  which  hereafter  will  be  referred  to  as  the  "  Hillside 
site"  (pi.  4,  figs.  3-8).  The  presence  of  an  old  village  at  this  spot 
had  not  been  suspected  by  the  Eskimos,  although  the  trail  to  the  top 
of  the  plateau  which  they  and  their  ancestors  had  followed  for  genera- 
tions, passed  directly  over  a  part  of  it.  There  was  visible  none  of 
the  refuse  commonly  found  about  old  Eskimo  villages,  no  projecting 
whale  bones  or  timbers,  no  elevations  or  depressions.  The  site  was 
completely  hidden  beneath  the  sod  and  stones,  and  the  vegetation  above 
it  differed  in  no  way  from  that  on  the  rest  of  the  hillside.  The  grass, 
it  is  true,  was  somewhat  greener  than  on  the  surrounding  surface, 
but  valuable  as  this  would  ordinarily  have  been  as  indicating  the 
presence  of  an  old  site,  it  would  not  in  this  case  have  led  to  its  de- 
tection, as  there  are  many  other  such  green  spots  along  the  hillside 
which  were  caused,  as  apparently  in  this  case,  by  water  seepage  or 
drainage.  The  only  visible  evidence  of  human  occupancy  was  the 
presence  of  a  few  seal  and  walrus  bones  which  through  weathering 
had  become  exposed  between  two  large  stones  in  a  rock  slide  (pi.  4, 
fig.  4).  A  little  digging  showed  that  similar  patches  of  refuse  were 
held  in  other  crevices  and  even  on  the  surfaces  of  some  of  the  rocks, 
embedded  in  a  thick,  tough  matting  of  moss.  This  would  indicate 
that  the  refuse  had  originally  been  deposited  over  the  rock  slide.  A 
small  stream,  fed  by  melting  snow  from  high  up  on  the  hillside,  winds 
its  way  in  and  out  among  the  rocks,  and  descends  to  the  lake  below. 
