A number of dead villages are found along this coast. The first and
largest is located a few miles west of Port Safety, 18 miles east of
Nome. This was a large village extending for a considerable distance
along the elevated beach separating an inland lagoon from the sea. The
depressions of the dwellings, of the usual dipper-with-handle type,
are very plain. Old settlers at Nome remember when the village was
still occupied. Nearer the sea the beach is said to have been lined
with burials, but the storm of 1913 took or covered everything. (See
Narrative, p. 90.)
A small Eskimo settlement existed on a rocky elevation east of Cape
Nome. There are some house sites, but the place gives little promise
of archeological importance. We found evidence that the site must have
been occupied until fairly recently. Among the bowlders were found two
skeletons.
A larger dead village is located near the mouth of a little stream west
of Cape Nome. It is doubtless the Azachagiag of the Zagoskin general
map. It gives no great promise archeologically.
From Nome to Point Spencer there are several old sites, all "dead"; and
there are one or two recently "dead" villages on Sledge (the old Aiak
or Aziak) Island. Of the coast sites, the most important is reported to
be that at Cape Woolley. It is said to have been the stopping point of
the King Islanders and may have been their old mainland village.
A number of old sites and burial grounds have been seen or learned of
in Port Clarence and Salt Lake. They are marked on the map, and those
of the lake have been discussed in the Narrative (p. 117). Those on
Salt Lake (Imuruk Basin) deserve attention.
Between Port Clarence and Cape Prince of Wales only one, and that
evidently not a very large site, was learned of at Cape York.
The most important site of the peninsula region is doubtless that at
the cape. Thanks to the able local teacher of that time, Mr. Clark
M. Garber, I am able to present a detailed map of this locality. It
is here that Doctor Jenness in 1926 conducted some excavations with
interesting results. But the site has barely been touched. It is the
nearest point to Asia. There are ample indications that it has been
occupied for a long period and by relatively large numbers of people.
Besides the ruined parts and old heaps there are still the skulls and
bones of many burials among the rocks about the village, and there is
evidence that more are in the ground. It is one of the chief sites
of the far northwest for systematic thorough exploration, and such
exploration is a growing necessity for all branches of anthropology
interested in the problems of the Bering Sea and Asiatic-American
connections.
SCAMMON BAY, NORTON SOUND, SOUTH COAST OF SEWARD PENINSULA, TO CAPE
RODNEY
[FIG. 22]