Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/29

IV. The greatest and most imposing of the house ruins but, unfortunately, that which was most destroyed, partly by the digging of the Eskimos and partly by the circumstance that whale skulls had been taken from it to build an autumn house on the site of ruin XVIII. Fig. 8 shows the ground plan of this and the two adjoining Image missingFig. 8.Naujan. The House Group IV–VI. houses V–VI. It has had three main platforms, each in its projecting part of the house; 6 whale skulls are still in the walls; one was still in the centre of the house and another lay in the middle of the mouth of the doorway; four other skulls are said to have been carried away. In this large house only the western platform and a part of the northern one were untouched, and these were excavated with good results. After all the loose stones and whale bones with which the house was filled had been cleaned out, the bottom layer was examined throughout, also with a rich yield; unfortunately, the excavating was interrupted before it was completed. After digging away about 60 cm of soil on the western platform a layer of flat stones and whale shoulder-blades was reached, over this being a layer of Cassiope tetragona; in this there was, among other things, a bunch of reindeer hair; on the inner side towards the room the platform was bounded by a row of stones placed on edge. On the northern platform there was a similar layer of stones, but this was somewhat disturbed; here a whale jaw-bone formed the inner boundary. No stone layer