Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/225

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
132

and a house ruin at the adjacent Koroqdjuaq. On July 3rd I returned by sledge to the station, completed the excavation at the house ruin at Mitimatalik and commenced excavating at Qilalukan, which for the remainder of the summer became my principal field of operations; 3 house ruins and 68 sq. metres of 2 refuse heaps, formed in front of 3 house ruins, were gradually excavated there; a more recent autumn house at Mitimatalik was also examined as well as some graves at Qilalukan; as in the summer before I was alone in the work. The archaeological work lasted until the frost, on Sep- tember 8th, compelled me to stop. Besides the excavations I did some photographing, surveying and mapping of the Qilalukan settlement.

Since left Ponds Inlet the work of excavation at Qilalukan has been continued in the summer of 1924, partly by P. Freuchen, who excavated there from July 23rd–31st, until he was called for by the motorship "Sokongen", partly by Staff-Sergeant Joy of the R. C. M. P., who in accordance with orders had excavation work done for the Museum at Ottawa, partly by W. Parsons, the post manager for the Hudson's Bay Company. On leaving, Freuchen obtained Parson's collection by purchase; this collection, which was dug up by Eskimos, naturally has not the same value as those excavated by the Expedition itself; in the first place, the excavating was not done systematically, and this is a great difficulty just with a place like Qilalukan, which has been inhabited from the earliest times until a few years ago; secondly, the information regarding these specimens does not seem to be reliable: for example, a couple of later objects, which were given to me by the Eskimos but which I threw away, appear again in an old grave find; this collection must therefore be treated with great caution, and in the following a (P) will always be used to show that the object under mention belongs to Parsons' collection. Freuchen himself excavated a rebuilt autumn house and commenced upon an old house ruin; some of Parsons' specimens come from a house ruin which I myself did not succeed in excavating completely, and some from two others.

The archaeological collection from Ponds Inlet comprises in all about 2800 specimens; of these, 1900 form the settlement find from Qilalukan (of which I excavated 1500 myself), 250 are from graves at Qilalukan, 250 from the house ruin at Mitimatalik and 400 from Button Point (and Koroqdjuaq); besides Parson's collection, most of the specimens from Button Point were, however, also dug up by Eskimos.