Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/25

One circumstance about this settlement that was very striking was its situation so far from and so high above the sea, the “larder” of the Eskimos. Usually, Eskimos build their houses as close to the sea as possible; but here even the house with the lowest altitude lies at a distance of about 100 metres from the sea and at a height of 12 metres above it; the other groups of houses lie at heights of 14, 16, 19 and 20 metres respectively; from Group XV–XVIII one can only see very little of the sea, and from houses XIX–XX, which lie 250 metres from the beach, only a little of the sea near Beach Point can be seen at a distance of about 50 kilometres. What is more, one might have thought that there were much better building conditions Image missingFig. 3.Naujan with lake and gull cliff and the house-ruins XI–XIV. on the sandy slope down towards the beach than on the swampy terrain by the lake-side, not to speak of the flat point east of the settlement where there are remnants of a large, modern summer settlement. The only possible explanation seems to be that since these houses were built the land has risen considerably. That the land is still rising can clearly, be seen by the many raised beaches and strata of marine shells. There are several other factors which argue for this hypothesis. In the construction of the houses whale skulls and other whale bones play a prominent part; why should these bones be conveyed so far up when it was quite unnecessary? When they returned from the hunt, why should they every time walk or drive much higher up than necessary? On the gravel terraces east of the houses are a number of meat-caches built of heavy stones; why has the catch been dragged right up here instead of putting it into