HOUSES AND CACHES 



By Francis A. Riddell and Frederica de Laguna 

 HOUSE PITS 



There were seven large rectangular depressions at Old Town that 

 seem to have been the remams of houses. In addition, three more 

 houses were found and excavated: House 8 and the Storage House, 

 buried under the debris of Mound B, and House 9 which had been 

 erected inside House Pit 1. 



The houses seem to have been scattered over the site without 

 reference to any regular plan or alinement, except that the ends, 

 where presumably the doors were located, faced the beach. Except 

 for the two largest pits, the dimensions of the others are similar 

 to house pits at Nessudat and Diyaguna'Et on Lost River, although 

 the latter are on the whole deeper. 



House Pit 1 is one of the largest at the site (pi. 2, a), with maximum 

 measurements of 50 feet by 50 feet, not including what appears to 

 be the entranceway toward the southeast. It was dug when Mound 

 B was about half its present height, and some of the excavated sand 

 was thrown back onto the mound, covering the stratified deposits 

 above House 8, a structure already abandoned and filled with midden 

 when House Pit 1 was excavated. (See Tan Sandy Midden in the 

 profile of Trench 51, fig. 5.) 



After the abandonment of House Pit 1 and the structiu'e which it 

 presumably contained, a much smaller building. House 9, was erected 

 in the southeastern (front?) end. Still later, after House 9 had 

 been destroyed by fire, a third structure was built over the ruins. 

 This last house evidently contained a place for sweat bathing. These 

 three buildings in House Pit 1 (see figs. 6-8) may have been the 

 last permanent houses to be erected at the site. What is known about 

 them is described in later sections. 



House Pit 2, about 50 feet southwest of House Pit 1, was about 

 30 feet long (northeast-southwest), 25 feet wide, and 2 feet deep. 

 A smaU test excavation in the bottom revealed no trace of timbers 

 or floor planks. These had probably rotted. 



House Pits 3 and 4, lying close to the present beach and from 220 

 to 230 feet southwest of House Pit 1, are completely overgrown by 

 a stand of small spruce trees (the grove in the center of pi. 2, h). 

 House Pit 4 is about 30 feet long (northeast-southwest), 28 feet 



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