73 
coast; but a rapid change of temperature destroys bone and ivory, the 
materials from which most Eskimo specimens are made. The only prac- 
tical method, therefore, was to expose the frozen soil to the atmosphere 
and allow it to thaw out naturally. The weather was cold and stormy, 
the floors of the houses about 3 feet below the surface, so that with the soil 
thawing out at the rate of 2 inches a day the excavation of even one pit 
was a long and laborious process. Three of the sites yielded almost no 
specimens, but enough were gathered from eight pits to give a fairly repre- 
sentative picture of the material culture of the Eskimos at the time this 
settlement was inhabited. It then seemed advisable to leave the remaining 
pits for some future investigator, and to examine other ruins in the vicinity. 
On the east side of Wales the land slopes rapidly upward, and the last 
houses lie on a steep bank overlooking the sea. Excavations on the brow 
of this bank revealed two houses built apparently one on top of the other. 
The floor of the upper house seemed to be 2 feet 6 inches below the surface 
of the ground, that of the lower, about 5 feet; but the stratification had 
been disturbed by slight landslides, so that the layers were not continuous 
and the true amount of accumulation over the site, uncertain. In another 
ruin, a few yards away, the floor appeared to be 2 feet 6 inches below the 
surface, but there also the land may have slipped. The specimens found 
in these sites, however, seemed to favour antiquities corresponding to 
their apparent depths. 
A more modern ruin, somewhat behind the brow of the bank, was 
excavated next. Here the logs that formed the roof were still partly 
intact, the floor boards were only a foot below the surface, and the remains 
included a glass bead and one or two other specimens that indicated direct 
or indirect contact with Europeans. Two other house sites on the sandspit 
in the heart of the present native village seemed to belong to the same 
period. The villagers assert that their forefathers, harassed by raids from 
Siberia, once abandoned Wales and fled to Barrow in the extreme north; 
and the extraordinary number of tools and utensils unearthed in the two 
ruins on the sandspit certainly indicated a sudden exodus. 
A small number of archaeological specimens were purchased from the 
villagers, who discovered them in rubbish heaps outside their houses, or 
when digging new cellars for the storage of meat and blubber. Towards 
the end of the writer’s residence at Wales the women and children caused a 
little annoyance by scratching over at night some of the sites which had 
been stripped almost to floor-level and then left to thaw out. An attempt 
to frighten the marauders by placing two human skulls on one of the sites 
proved unsuccessful; the older Eskimos avoided the place, as they avoid 
all places that contain human remains; but some of the younger, more 
sophisticated natives kicked the skulls down the bank and continued 
their depredations. 
In all, 1,820 specimens were gathered at Wales and sent to the Museum 
for future study and for comparison with specimens from other areas. 
No full report can be made until this study is completed, but a brief pre- 
liminary statement will cover the main conclusions. 
The sites belong to two, and in all probability three, periods. Three 
of the ruins dated from the beginnings of Eskimo contact with European 
civilization, for they contained a blue glass bead, an iron pipe-cleaner, two 
gauges for making fish-nets, and three harpoons with iron points. Seven 
harpoons, however, had points of stone, and all the knife blades were of 
