84 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



creek, is a hill 600 feet long, 250 feet broad, and 30 feet high, on the 

 highest point of which, now marked by a stout Russian cross, stood, 

 according to tradition, the first Russian chapel, and on which are now 

 located two native houses and two semi subterranean dwellings. From 

 this hill in 1937 we obtained three of the oblong-headed skeletons, 

 and here, on the southeast side, we made in 1938 extensive and most 

 fruitful excavations. These showed that the eastern main part of the 

 knoll, if not all of it, was not a natural hill, as first supposed, but a great 

 accumulation of human refuse. The maximum thickness of these 

 layers on the south side, facing a lake, was found to be at least 

 20 feet, and, what proved even more important, the whole except the 

 surface dated evidently from pre-Russian times and belonged to the 

 oblong-skulled pre-Aleut people. The 3 weeks spent at work here 

 proved fruitful in every particular. We recovered a whole series of 

 skeletons, some of which rested below 8 feet of deposits; deep in the 

 deposits were found many fragments of large well-wrought stone pots 

 of various shapes, resembling those of Amchitka; and we recovered 

 many bone and stone implements, among them several 13- to 14-inch 

 beautifully chipped black basalt blades, a series of excellent large 

 bone harpoon points, and several decorated ivory articles. Notwith- 

 standing some local spoliation, the bulk of this site, and especially its 

 lower and most important levels, remains intact, and the whole site 

 deserves to be set aside as a scientific reservation. 



From Umnak, late in July, we were taken by the United States 

 Coast Guard vessel Shoshone to the Commander Islands. The visit 

 to these islands occupied 5 days. The Russian authorities welcomed 

 us, and the weather for once proved all that could be desired for our 

 work. Accompanied by Lieutenant Lazarev, chief of the Border 

 Guard in the islands, whose aid was very valuable, we were enabled 

 to examine all the most likely locations for old settlements on both of 

 the islands. We found a number of settlements, two of them — at 

 Sarania and at Korabelni Bay — of considerable size, but on examina- 

 tion, some digging, and from inquiries among the oldest natives, all 

 the sites without exception were found to date from the Russian 

 period, and to be those of Aleuts brought there in the earlier part of 

 the nineteenth century from the Aleutian Islands by the Russians. 

 Xot a trace of anything pre-Russian was seen or learned of on either 

 Bering Island or Copper Island. Most of the places examined were 

 so favorably located as to fine streams, lakes, and the seas, that, had 

 there been any pre-Russian people on the islands they would certainly 

 have settled there and left their remains ; but there is definitely nothing 

 of that nature. 



