full pre-settlement value. The average of
all five estimates is 3,124.

Kroeber states unequivocally that he cannot concede to the Yurok a
population greater than 2,500. Yet the best ethnographic data we
possess, much of it assembled by Kroeber himself, indicate a population
of 3,100 to 3,200. The key to the controversy seems to lie in Kroeber's
decision that house sites and pits must be reduced by a factor of
one-third in order to compute population. His conclusions are summed up
in the following paragraph (1925, p. 18):

The Yurok recognize that a village normally contained more named
house sites than inhabited houses. Families died out, consolidated,
or moved away. The pit of their dwelling remained and its name
would also survive for a generation or two. If allowance is made
for parts of villages washed out by floods and possibly by mining,
or dwellings already abandoned when the Americans came and totally
forgotten 60 years later, the number of houses sites on these 30
miles of river may be set at 200 or more in place of 173. In other
words there were _two houses to each three recognized house sites_
among the Yurok in native times.

Let us now consider the following points.

1. With respect to the 173 house sites mentioned in the paragraph above
Kroeber states on the same page (1925, p. 18): "Recent counts of houses
and house pits _recollected as inhabited_, total over 170 for the
Rekwoi-Kepel stretch." (Emphasis mine.) In other words the data
furnished by Kroeber's informants and presented in the table on page 18
were not based upon the actual or presumptive number of pits but on
inhabited houses. It is this total which conforms so closely to the
count made by the census-takers of 1852 and also that shown on
Waterman's list. By Kroeber's own admission therefore a one-third
reduction for these Yurok towns would not only be unnecessary but would
lead to entirely false conclusions.

2. Kroeber is not clear whether he means house pits existing on the
ground in 1910 or pits which _might_ have been visible had there been
no destruction due to floods or mining subsequent to 1850. He states
that, if the latter are included, then the number of house sites "may
be set at" 200 or more. But by implication he recommends that the
observed number be reduced by one-third. Now on Waterman's maps the
author shows for 19 towns the actual or approximate location of the
pits visible or o