Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/374

marik, who now lives on Southampton Island, relates that when as a little boy (he is now about 60) he came there for the first time with his father and several other Aivilik Eskimos, they found here a salmon dam of the kind usually built by the Sadlermiut at the mouths of rivers; they then rebuilt it in their own fashion, but soon abandoned it and built the dam which is still to be found at the mouth of the river, just below the high-water mark. Round about the upper salmon dam there are large numbers of salmon caches and Image missingFig. 73.One of the oldest House Ruins. Kuk. store houses, built of lime-stone; these houses which, with their low conical shape resemble "tower traps", are particularly numerous on the east and south sides of a small plateau on the north side of the river; here are about 20 store houses (map 6–7) one of which has collapsed; one of them (8) is erected on the site of a house ruin; there is also a high cairn of the form characteristic of Southampton Island with the widened portion at the top, several tent rings and a few graves and meat caches (10).

About 2 km south of the river mouth, near the coast, about 4 m above sea level, is the eastern house group (3), consisting of 2 ruins of winter houses, about 10 large meat caches, three or four tent rings (two of them oval, each with 2 platform spaces) and a similar toadstool-shaped stone cairn (meat platform); on the terrain round about are several meat caches and fox traps of the box type.

It is obvious from the conditions at Kuk that, gradually as the country has risen, the habitations have been moved further and further out in order to always be near the sea. At any rate it must