The indigenous inhabitants gave them a rather cold reception at first, and Rivers decided to continue travelling while Layard stayed for a year immersing himself in the culture, learning and documenting the vernacular language, and recording myths, legends and oral history. This was a society in which monoliths and standing stones formed part of the cultural material, and Layard's interest clearly had some roots in his aunt's investigations. Prior to this time, anthropologists tended to survey many cultures over the course of expeditions and did not spend long periods of time staying in one place and learning about a single culture. Layard in Atchin and his contemporary Bronisław Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands of New Guinea were the first modern anthropologists to use what is today called participant observation methods in ethnographic research.