Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/19

ethnographic, carthographic and natural-historic work had necessarily to be done in this season too; but in periods when conditions made it possible I concentrated principally upon the excavations.

In 1921 the expedition arrived at headquarters, Danish Island near Vansittart Island, at such an advanced date — 18th September — that no excavating could be done. In the summer of 1922 I excavated for two months at Naujan in Repulse Bay, helped during the last month by our Greenland interpreter Jacob Olsen; besides we made a small excavation at Aivilik. From there we went in the middle of August to Kuk in Duke of York Bay on Southampton Island, where we excavated until on September 6th we made an unsuccessful attempt to get away from the island. In the summer of 1923 I made some excavations at Ponds Inlet in the north part of Baffin Land, some of the work being done at the old settlements of Qilalukan and Mitimatalik and some at Button Point on Bylot Island. During the same summer Knud Rasmussen excavated on King William's Land, Peter Freuchen at Chesterfield Inlet, Kaj Birket-Smith on Sentry Island and Helge Bangsted on Vansittart Island. After Birket-Smith and I had proceeded home in the autumn of 1923, Freuchen continued my excavations at Qilalukan in the summer of 1924. It will thus be seen that the Fifth Thule Expedition has made excavations in ten different places within the central Eskimo region; this work has been the means of getting together a collection of about 6,400 specimens. In addition we have several hundreds of specimens brought to us by the Eskimos; these scarcely have the same value as those we dug up ourselves, but in many respects they form a valuable supplement to our own collections.^[1]

The system of excavation which I employed, and which was also used by the other members of the expedition when at all possible, naturally had to be adapted to the conditions; the short time available, the frozen ground, the lack of proper equipment and implements, packing materials etc. which one must have on an expedition as compared with the equipment available when excavations of settlements are undertaken at home; in addition, I was quite alone on the work as a rule. The following method was employed: Wherever possible the ruins of the houses were divided into natural sections: the main platform, the side platforms, the floor, the doorway, and so on; but as in most cases the ruins were so fallen in that this could not be done, the houses were divided into sections as shown in the following