-.Bancroft Library
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 60
HANDBOOK
OF
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES
PART I
INTRODUCTORY THE LITHIC INDUSTRIES
BY
W. H. HOLMES
WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1919
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY,
Washington, D. C., April 10, 1916.
SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith the manuscript of a memoir entitled " Handbook of Aboriginal American Antiquities, Part I," by William H. Holmes, and to recommend its publication as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Very respectfully,
F. W. HODGE, Ethnologist-in-Charge. DR. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
Secretary, /Smithsonian Institution.
in
CONTENTS
I. The place of archeology in human history 1
II. Resources and agencies of archeologic science 9
III. Progress of archeologic research 13
IV. Problems of race and culture origins 18
V. Problems of intercontinental communication 32
VI. Problems of migration 36
VII. Problems of culture development and mutation 44
VIII. Problems of chronology 51
IX. Culture characterization areas 95
1. The North Atlantic area 99
2. The Georgia-Florida area 102
3. The Middle and Lower Mississippi Valley area 105
4. The Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes area 108
5. The Great Plains and Rocky Mountain area 110
6. The Arid area Ill
7. The California area 114
8. The Columbia-Fraser area 117
9. The Northwest Coast area 119
10. The Arctic Coast area 120
11. The Great Northern Interior area 123
12. The North Mexican area 123
13. The Middle Mexican area 125
14. The South Mexican area 128
15. The Maya-Quiche area 129
16. The Central American-Isthmian area 132
17. The North Andean-Pacific area 134
18. The Middle Andean-Pacific area 136
19. The South Andean-Pacific area 140
20. The Amazon Delta area 141
21. Primitive South America 142
22. The West Indian or Antillean area 145
X. Classification of antiquities 148
XI. Acquirement and utilization of materials 153
XII. Acquirement of minerals 155
Quarrying and mining 155
XIII. Quartzite bowlder quarries, District of Columbia 159
XIV. Flint Ridge and Warsaw quarries, Ohio 173
Flint Ridge quarries 173
Warsaw quarries 181
XV. Flint quarries: West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana 185
XVI. Mill Creek quarries, Illinois 187
X VII . Flint quarries near Crescent, Mo 195
VI CONTENTS
Page
XVIII. Novaculite quarries, Arkansas 196
XIX. Chert quarries of the Great Plains 201
Oklahoma 201
Kansas 209
XX. Quartzite quarries, Wyoming 210
XXI. Obsidian mines 214
XXII. Steatite quarries 228
XXIII. Mica mines 241
XXIV. The red pipestone quarry 253
XXV. Hematite ore and paint mine, Missouri 266
XXVI. Turquoise mines 271
XXVII. Quarries of building stone 274
XXVIII The stone-shaping arts , 278
XXIX. Fracture processes 283
Percussion fracture processes 283
XXX. Pressure fracture processes 304
XXXI. Crumbling processes 330
XXXII. Abrading processes 344
XXXIII. Incising processes 358
XXXIV. Piercing processes 363
XXXV. Fire fracture processes 364
XXXVI. dishing' s account of shaping processes 366
Bibliography 368
Index . . 373
ILLUSTEATIONS
FIGURE 1. False relation of the historic (written) to the prehistoric (unwrit- ten) 4
2. True relation of the historic (written) to the prehistoric (unwritten) . 4
3. Relation of recorded to unrecorded history 6
4. Relation of the unrecorded history to the purposely and fortui-
tously recorded history 6
5. Relations of unrecorded history and the several forms of record 7
6. Relative permanency of the several forms of record 7
7. Ancient wheeled toy from a child's grave, Mexico 21
8. Stone gouge-adz, New England type 23
9. Stone gouge-adz, Scandinavian type 23
10. Ax-shaped ' ' banner stone, ' ' eastern United States 23
11. Ax-shaped stone implement, Scandinavian type 23
12. Ground slate spearhead, New England type 25
13. Ground slate spearhead, Japanese type 25
14. Ground slate spearhead, Korean type 25
15. A terra-cotta head with oblique eyes. Vera Cruz, Mexico 28
16. Chinese bronze axes with perforate and decorated blades 29
17. a, Axlike stone implement with perforate blade, United States. 6,
Axlike implement of bronze with perforate and decorated blade,
Peru , 29
18. Antique Chilcat mask with Chinese coins set in as eyes 30
19. Stages of migration in the peopling of America from tropical Asia. . 40
20. Jade statuette from Vera Cruz, Mexico, with glyphic date corre-
sponding to 100 B. C 52
21. Map suggesting multiple origins in Asia and differentiations in
America 56
22. Section of Table Mountain showing mines penetrating to old river
channels 61
23. «, Fragment of stone pestle found by Clarence King embedded in
gravels underlying the Table Mountain lava cap. 6, Pestle of
the prevailing type among the California tribes 62
24. The Calaveras skull, said to have been taken from Tertiary gravels
at a depth of 130 feet 64
25. Types of mortars and pestles said to have come from the auriferous
gravels 65
26. A ladle-like utensil from the auriferous gravels 66
27. Boat-shaped stones from the auriferous gravels 66
28. Weathered gravel wall of a gold mine 200 feet in height, with an-
cient village site above 67
29. Section showing relations of ancient village site to caved-in gold
mine 67
30. Obsidian blade from supposed Pleistocene deposits, Nevada 68
VII
VIII ILLUSTRATIONS
Page FIGURE 31. Terra-cotta figurine reported to have come from late Tertiary or
early Quaternary deposits, Idaho 69
32. Section showing the geological position of the Lansing skeleton. . . 71
33. Frontal view of the Lansing skull, Kansas 71
34. Sand-buried Indian village, site on shore of Chesapeake Bay 74
35. Sections of gravel bank, Newcomerstown, Ohio, suggesting danger
of misinterpretation of finds 80
36. Supposed paleolithic implement from gravels at Newcomerstown,
compared with rejects of blade-making from shop sites 81
37. Chipped blade from supposed glacial deposits at Loveland, Ohio. 82
38. Grooved ax from supposed glacial deposits, New London, Ohio. . . 83
39. Objects of chipped quartz from sand and gravel deposits at Little
Falls, Minn. Probably rejectage of arrowhead making 86
40. Implement-like bits of bone from a California cave 92
41. Map of North America outlining tentative culture characterization
areas 96
42. Map of South America outlining tentative culture characterization
areas 97
43. Map of lower Piney Branch, showing position of bowlder quarries. 160
44. Section of bluffs showing position of bowlder quarries 161
45. Section of bowlder quarry showing undermining and a pocket of
shop refuse 161
46. Section of bowlder quarry showing ordinary quarry face and
deposit of shop refuse 162
47. Character of refuse deposits exposed by trenching 163
48. Part of an extensive deposit of shop refuse near the quarry face. . 164
49. Relation of a roughed-out, broken blade to the original bowlder. . 165
50. Series of rejects illustrating failure at various steps of progress in
blade making 166
51. Examples of blades broken under the hammerstone when nearly
finished 167
52. Bowlder showing marks of use as an anvil 168
53. Examples of the blades produced in the quarry workshops 169
54. Examples of the specialized implements from village sites 170
55. Life-size group in plaster of Paris, illustrating the quarry shop-
work 171
56. Map showing distribution of the several Flint Ridge quarry areas. 174
57. Detail map of a portion of the Flint Ridge quarries, showing dis-
tribution of pittings 175
58. Section of a quarry excavation, showing work in progress 177
59. Rejects of blade making due to malformation, too great thickness
being the principal cause of failure 179
60. Examples of the hammerstones employed in blade making 180
61. Types of the blades produced in the quarry shops 182
62. Types of the implements specialized for use, one as a scraper, the
others as projectile points 183
63. Map of the Mill Creek quarry site 187
64. Section indicating the relation of the residual nodule-bearing
deposits to the limestones 188
65. Manner of occurrence of the chert concretions in the limestone
strata 189
66. Examples of the flattish, irregularly shaped chert concretions
used in blade making 189
ILLUSTRATIONS IX
Page
FIGURE 67. Section showing the ancient excavations 190
68. Clublike implement used in removing the concretions from the
matrix 190
69. Suggested manner of holding the quarry implement 191
70. Examples of the blades produced and ready for hafting as hoes. . 191
71. Hoe blade specialized to facilitate hafting 192
72. Much-used abrading stone 192
73. Rejected blade used as an abrader 192
74. Chipping implements made of the base of deer antlers 193
75. Manner of using the antler hammer, unhafted 194
76. Manner of using the antler hammer, hafted 194
77. Sketch map of the Indian Mountain novaculite quarry 197
78. Sketch map of a small portion of the Magnet Cove novaculite
quarries 199
79. Section through a single quarry pit well filled with shop debris. . 202
80. Plan of lodge shop site showing central fire pit and circle of chert
blocks and shaping refuse 203
81. Workshop sites with depression in the center, probably the lodge
fireplace 204
82. Series illustrating the full range of quarry shop rejects 205
83. Prevailing cause of failure 206
84. Comparatively thin blade found among the refuse 206
85. Blade broken near point of completion 207
86. Slightly notched specimen, possibly used as a pick 208
87. Nucleus from which flake knives have been struck 208
88. Sketch map of the Wyoming quartzite quarry area 211
89. Present appearance of the Wyoming quartzite quarries 212
90. Present appearance of the Wyoming quartzite quarries 212
91. Giant columns of impure obsidian, Obsidian Canyon, Yellowstone
National Park 215
92. Obsidian blades from California 216
93. Obsidian workers in California 217
94. Great deposits of obsidian flakes and other shop refuse, Mountain
of the Knives, Mexico 219
95. Section of the great deposit of flakage, obsidian mines, Mountain
of the Knives, Mexico 220
96. Hammerstones from the obsidian mines of Mexico 221
97. Roughed-out nuclei intended for blade making, rejected on ac-
count of defects of fracture, Mountain of the Knives, Mexico — 222
98. Exhausted or nearly exhausted nuclei from the Valley of Mexico. 223
99. Scraper-like objects from the refuse heaps, Mountain of the
Knives, Mexico 224
100. Large flakes slightly specialized for undetermined uses, Moun-
tain of the Knives, Mexico 225
101. Types of implements from the fields near the obsidian mines,
Mountain of the Knives, Mexico 226
102. Lump of soapstone partly cut out of the mass 229
103. The stump left by breaking off the globular lump 230
104. Unfinished vessels broken during the shaping work 232
105. Rudely finished vessels from village sites 233
106. Appearance of the Clifton quarry, Virginia, after cleaning out 234
107. Chisel and pick like forms of quarry implements 235
108. Chisel and pick like forms of quarry implements 236
109. Grooved axes employed as picks in the quarry work 237
110. Grooved axes employed as picks in the quarry work 237
X ILLUSTRATIONS
Page FIGURE 111. Gouge of New England type employed in the Connecticut Avenue
quarries 238
112. Traces of aboriginal work in soapstone quarry, Santa Catalina
Island 239
113. The soapstone workers, a life-size group prepared by the writer
for the Panama California Exposition and repeated in the
National Museum 240
114. Stone implements from the ancient mica mines of North Carolina 243
115. Stone implements from the ancient mica mines of North Carolina. . 244
116. Sketch map showing the relation of the Robinson and Sink Hole
mines 24G
117. Distant view of the Robinson mine 247
118. The Robinson mine, on crest of ridge 247
119. Section of the Robinson mine 248
120. Sketch indicating the present appearance of the mine 250
121. Section of the Clarissa mine 250
122. Photographic views of the Clarissa mine 251
123. Sketch map of the pipestone quarry 254
124. Catlin's sketch of the pipestone quarry 255
125. The almost complete obliteration of the earlier pittings. Pipe-
stone village in the distance 256
126. Appearance of the present quarries 257
127. The Sioux at work with steel tools 258
128. Indian miner breaking up the exposed margin of the pipestone
layer 259
129. Section of the pipestone quarry 259
130. Hammerstones used in the quarry work before the acquirement of.
steel tools 260
131. Grooved sledges of the Plains tribes found on the shop sites 261
132. Examples of worked bits of the pipestone from the camp sites. . . 261
133. Commercial pipe and trinket maker at work near the quarries 263
134. Great granite bowlders near the quarries, brought from the far
north by glacial ice 265
135. A heap of ancient mining tools thrown out of the quarry 266
136. Examples of the stone sledge heads, picks, and hammers found in
the mines 267
137. Wall of a modern iron mine, exposing the ancient tunnels 268
138. Section indicating the general character of the ancient tunneling. . . 269
139. One of the figures of the model of the hematite workers, pre-
pared by the writer for the Panama California Exposition 270
140. Stone sledge heads from the ancient turquoise mines at Los Ceril-
los, N. Mex 272
141. The stonecutters of Yucatan. From a group in the National
Museum 275
142. Types of hammerstones 285
143. Pitted hammerstones employed in a wide range of uses, and of very
general occurrence 286
144. Free-hand fracture of a bowlder with a bowlder hammer 287
145. Flint working by Ishi, a Yahi Indian of California 288
146. First step in the making of a thin blade 290
147. a, One face chipped all around but unsuccessful because not flat
enough — a reject. 6, Successful so far because flat enough to
insure a thin blade, provided the other side chips equally flat. . 291
ILLUSTRATIONS XI
Page FIGURE 148. Beginning of the chipping of the second side of the bowlder. A
pad was generally used to protect the hand 291
149. a, Profile of a blade, unsuccessful because too thick. 6, Profile of a
blade, successful because thin enough to serve as a knife, or as
the blank form for a projectile point 291
150. Types of the blades, the blank forms of implements, produced in
the quarries 292
151. Example of failure in blade making due to malformation 293
152. Example of cross fracture under the hammer near the completion
of a blade 293
153. Cross-fractured blade, one-half of which was found, and also a
dozen of the flakes struck from it with the hammer. Flakes set
back into place 293
154. Limited degree of specialization of the blades, possible by per-
cussion with flat discoidal hammers 294
155. Large, thick, animal-shaped figure of flint, probably specialized
exclusively with the hammerstone 294
156. Flint blade the specialization of which would exceed the capacity
of the hammerstone 295
157. Indirect percussion; three hands employed 296
158. Free-hand fracture with hammer and deer-horn punch 297
159. Fracture of a stone held in the hand by striking it against an anvil
stone 297
160. Fracturing a large stone with a hammerstone cast as a missile 298
161. Use of a hammerstone in making flakes 298
162. Shaping a blade at rest by fracture with a hammerstone 299
163. Chipping a stone held at rest by strokes of a hammerstone 300
164. Pebble from which flakes have been removed by strokes of the
hammer 301
165. Hammerstones used also as anvils, as indicated by the scarring. . 301
166. Hammerstones used also as anvils, as indicated by the scarring. . 301
167. Flakes made from water- worn bowlders by a single stroke of the
hammerstone 302
168. Rest fracture with hammer and punch 302
169. Fracture by resting a blade upon an anvil and tapping it from
above with a hammer 303
170. Notching a blade by resting it on a sharp-edged anvil and tapping
it with a hammer 303
171. Free-hand pressure chipping with a bone point 305
172. Sharpening an arrow point by chipping with a bone point 306
173. Examples of pressure chipping tools 307
174. Positions and movements in pressure chipping 308
175. Paiute Indian chipping a knife blade with a bone point 309
176. Relative position of the implements in the hands of the Paiute
Indian, fig. 175 310
177. Free-hand pressure chipping of the Klamath Indians 311
178. Free-hand pressure chipping of the Klamath Indians 312
179 . Position in chipping with a bone point by the Wintoons 314
180. Flint working by Ishi 317
181. Bone chipping implement of the Eskimo 319
182. Method of flaking by Mexican Indians as described by Torque-
mada, and by western United States tribes as described by
Catlin.. 323
XII ILLUSTRATIONS
Page.
FIGURE 183. Australian method of chipping as described by Balfour 325
184. Flaking and notching tools used by Ishi 327
185. The secondary process — chipping the obsidian 328
186. The process of notching and serrating 329
187. Shaping a stone ax by the pecking (crumbling) process 331
188. Method of holding the discoidal hammerstone 331
189. Typical discoidal hammerstones 332
190. Stone axes in process of manufacture by pecking (crumbling)
with hammerstones 333
191. Incipient grooved axes showing the effects of pecking (crumbling)
with a hammerstone 334
192. Specimens illustrating successive steps in shaping hatchet blades
by fracture, crumbling, and grinding 335
193. Carving with a pointed bit of stone held in the hand 336
194. Probable manner of employing the chisel in carving stone 336
195. A chisel-like blade of flint from Yucatan 337
196. Three forms of the crumbling-carving process — with mallet and
chisel, with hafted pick, and with pick held in the hand 337
197. Partially dressed blocks of stone in an ancient quarry at Mitla,
Mexico 338
198. Rude stone-cutting (crumbling) implements found on a quarry
site at Mitla, Mexico 338
199. Marvelous mural masonry of the ancient Peruvians 341
200. Carving of the massive rock in place by the ancient Peruvians 342
201. Common forms of abrading stones from the Atlantic States 346
202. Type of whetstone of jade in common use among the western
Eskimo 346
203. Grooves produced by the abrasion of implements 347
204. Series of positions illustrating abrading work with a small hand
implement 347
205. A California Indian grinding shell ornaments on a flat stone 348
206. Traces of abrading work left in rock bodies in place 348
207. Use of the saw-abrader 349
208. Showing the result of sawing from opposite sides and breaking the
thin septum 349
209. Solid stone drill points 350
210. Drill points of chipped flint 350
211. Tubular drill of copper and section of bore 351
212. Bowl of travertine vase partially excavated by tubular drill 351
213. Alabaster tablet with the bone drill found in place 352
214. Primitive method of drilling 353
215. Primitive method of drilling 353
216. Primitive method of drilling 353
217. Primitive method of drilling 353
218. Primitive method of drilling 354
219. Primitive method of drilling '. 354
220. Primitive method of drilling 355
221. Primitive method of drilling 355
222. Weighted drills 356
223. a, Use of strong strokes by a broad-pointed implement, probably
hafted. b, Use of a narrow-pointed implement, probably
unhafted.. 360
PREFACE
THE present work forms one of the series of handbooks of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which was conceived as the natural and necessary outgrowth of the Handbook of American Indians (Bulletin 30), a comprehensive treatise com- pleted and sent to press while the writer was Chief of the Bureau- It was planned to have a series of at least 12 separate handbooks which should cover as many grand divisions of the subject matter embodied in brief form in Bulletin 30. The first of this series to be submitted for pub- lication was the Handbook of American Indian Languages (Bul- letin 40), Part 1, and the second, the present memoir, the Hand- book of American Antiquities. This work is not designed as a formal presentation of American archeology in which the antiquities are described and discussed country by country, or region by region, in geographical sequence, but rather as a reference work or manual, the principal purpose of which is to assemble and present the antiquities of the conti- nent in such a manner and order as to make them readily available to the student who shall undertake to present a comprehensive view of the evolution of culture among men.
The present volume is, in large measure, introductory to the systematic presentation of the antiquities; it deals with the scope of archeologic science, the character, extent, and classification of its subject matter, the progress of research; with the several important problems which present themselves for solution, including those of race origin, migrations, culture evolution, and chronology; with the ethnic characterization areas; with the acquirement of the sub- stances employed in the arts; and finally with the manipulation of stone.
The second volume is to be devoted exclusively to the implements, utensils, and other minor artifacts of stone. These are given pre- cedence over other grand divisions of the subject matter for the reason that they lie at the foundation of Stone Age culture, and, for that matter, at the foundation of all progress toward the civilized
XIII
XIV PREFACE
state, and at the same time are the chief reliance of the historian and chronologist who seeks to write the early chapters of the story of humanity. Additional volumes are expected to treat of all the re- maining materials — mineral, animal, and vegetable — and it is fur- ther planned to give separate consideration to the more important arts and industries practiced by the native peoples, as building, sculpture, the textile and fictile arts, and metallurgy.
While the preliminary studies for this work were under way, the writer was called upon to take charge of the archeological collections of the National Museum, with which he had been more or less familiar for 40 years. These collections, at the time of his transfer from .the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Museum, were in process of removal from the old to the new Museum building and had to be reassembled, classified, labeled, and installed in exhibition cases designed and built for the purpose. This arduous and prolonged yet agreeable task was executed in the most painstaking manner and extended over the years 1909-1913. In this way the collections, which had accumulated in a somewhat random way during half a century, became intimately familiar to the writer, and their study led not only to a more complete understanding of the characteristics, technical history, and functions of the many classes of objects, but opened the way to suitable methods of museum presentation and to their rational application to the solution of the various problems of aboriginal history.
Dr. Charles Rau, an archeologist of exceptional acumen, was the first custodian of antiquities in the Museum and Early Publications published a number of valuable papers relating to the collection as it existed during his incumbency (1877-87), and for a number of years Mr. Frank H. Gushing was associated with him in the work, gaining a mastery of the subject which proved of great service to him in his subsequent valuable field researches among the tribes. Dr. Thomas Wilson followed Dr. Rau (1887-1902), and during his custodianship published a number of volumes, in which portions of the national collections were described and illustrated. The work of this early period was, however, in the main preliminary to a more systematic and comprehensive dis- cussion of the materials of American archeology. An elaborate catalogue of the national collections was begun by Dr. Rau, but re- mained unfinished at the time of his death. Numerous excellent illus- trations prepared under his direction by Mr. Charles F. Trill, a master draftsman, were utilized by Dr. Wilson, and selections from the same will appear in the present work.
PREFACE XV
While the Museum staff during the past 50 years was gradually accumulating, studying, and installing the collections, ^e^ researches conducted by Government experts in various branches were actively adding new material and amassing besides a great body of information relative to the tribes and their culture, present and past. Major Powell began his epoch-making studies among the tribes of the arid region in the late sixties, and the succeeding half century witnessed the gradual build- ing up of the Bureau of American Ethnology, which has done so much toward placing on record the present and the past of the northern aborigines. Researches carried forward by other institu- tions and by individuals at home and abroad during this period have aided in greatly extending our knowledge of the aboriginal culture of the entire continent, placing the science of American archeology on a substantial and permanent footing.
Many of the problems of antiquity have been solved, but still ethers remain which must await fuller investigation [emSs°1V ^an has yet been possible. Among these are the
origin of the native race, the period or periods of arrival in America, the routes of migration, the areas occupied by the successive incoming groups, the character and relations of the cultures introduced, the influence of environments and of successive environments on the people and their culture, and the manner in which the stages of culture supervened one upon another, together with their general chronology. Indeed, some of the questions can never be fully answered, as the solutions are unrecorded in the objective forms of art with which archeology has principally to deal. However, the deep mystery which a short time ago enshrouded some of the greater problems is now dispelled and visions of mysterious races and lost civilizations haunt the minds of those only who have failed to keep in touch with the progress of archeological research throughout America.
Archeology deals primarily with the material relics of antiquity, deriving from them what it can of the past of the ^g°epe< aborigines, but its researches extend to a much wider
field, as will be shown in succeeding pages. However, it does not assume to comprise the whole of the so-called " age of stone," since our aboriginal history as a whole lies entirely within the so-called age or stage of stone. Intelligently conceived, a dis- cussion of the Stone Age does not signify merely a study of objective antiquities but a comprehensive consideration of the whole subject matter of the aboriginal peoples and their culture. The expression " Stone Age " as applied to America has thus a wider significance than even the term " archeology," comprehending, as it does, somatology, psychology, language, religion, social systems, tech-
XVI PREFACE
nology, and esthetics, embracing in each department the problems of evolution, chronology, geography, and general history. The ultimate purpose of the archeologist working within his special
field is not merely to classify and describe the antiqui- Of Re ^es> ^ut to a^ *u acquiring and making available
such full and intimate knowledge of all the phe- nomena of aboriginal culture as to render possible their accurate application to the elucidation of the American race and thus to the history of the human race as a whole.
In the researches of the Bureau of American Ethnology the south- ern limit of these activities has usually coincided Northern America with the northern boundary of Mexico, although it
is probable that a more natural line of demarcation between Northern and Middle America could be drawn across north- ern Mexico, for it is here that there appears to be a somewhat decided break in the continuity of peoples and cultures.1 The peculiar cul- ture of the mound-building tribes practically ends with the lower valley of the Rio Grande, but the culture characterizing the arid re- gion extends in slightly variant forms well into Mexico. It was not in the original plan to extend the present work to Middle and
South America, for the reason that until recent years ^Americ&n researches in these regions had not been carried far
enough to make a reasonably well rounded presenta- tion of southern antiquities possible, and even now the task of covering this vast ground meets with much embarrassment from lack of reliable knowledge. In these countries the early explorers have given their chief attention to the architectural and other striking and showy remains, leaving the minor relics in a large measure unobserved; however, more recently much good work, though not often fully intensive work and covering limited areas only, has been done by Middle and South American students as well as by those of Northern America and Europe.
It is well understood that the culture as well as the peoples of
the West Indian Islands have kinship with the cul- west indies ture and peoples of South America rather than of
North America, but recent researches, especially those of Fewkes under the auspices of the Bureau of American Ethnology in cooperation with the staff of the Museum of the Amer- ican Indian, have made the antiquities of the Antilles so well known that they can be presented with reasonable fullness.
1 It has been found convenient in presenting the materials of antiquity to refer to the continent as comprising three grand divisions, Northern, Middle, and South America, the first including North America down to middle northern Mexico and the second from this boundary to the Gulf of Darien.
PREFACE XVH
The Hawaiian Islands and Samoa are remote from the American shores, but a brief review of their antiquities may Hawaii and Samoa be embodied in this work for comparative purposes. It is not assumed that intimate relations existed be- tween these and other Pacific islands and the American Continent during early or even late pre-Columbian times, but analogies are found to exist between the antiquities of the adjacent land areas and especially along the more proximate shores of the two regions which require to be explained.
The multitude of analogies between the art forms of America and
those of the Stone Age peoples of the Old World
culture Analogies need not receive exhaustive attention in this work,
although it is recognized that a comparative study
of the entire field would be most interesting in its bearing upon the
questions of parallel developments, relationships, and resemblance
due to incomplete differentiations and to analogies arising from
transfer of independently developed culture phenomena.
The researches relating to the antiquities of America and more especially of Northern America are recorded in an Literature extensive literature. Published works embodying
original researches in the several ethnic areas, out- lined later on, are cited in connection with the brief comparative study of these areas, and it is intended that a list of publications bearing upon the general field shall appear as an appendix in one of the subsequent volumes.
W. H. HOLMES. 38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt i 2
HANDBOOK OF ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES
PART I
INTRODUCTORY THE LITHIC INDUSTRIES
By W. H. HOLMES
I. THE PLACE OF ARCHEOLOGY IN HUMAN HISTORY
A NTHROPOLOG Y, which is defined as the science of man, may
L\ be regarded as presenting two distinct phases: (a) The his-
1. X torical phase, which deals with the present and past, and (&)
the practical phase, which relates to the present and future. The
former comprises all of those researches designed Human History to acquire a knowledge of the present and past of syLnyin^uT010^ man> an(i tne latter all of those researches which
have the present and future welfare of man in view. The term " History " as applied to the human race is a com- prehensive designation corresponding to the historical phase of Anthropology. According to Powell's classification, Anthropology may be considered under seven heads or departments, giving rise to as many branches of research : Somatology, the science of the human body; psychology, the science of the human mind; philology, the science of activities designed for expression; sociology, the science of institutions; sophiology, the science of activities designed to give instruction; technology, the science of the arts and industries; esthetology, the science of activities designed to give pleasure. In working out its problems each of these branches employs every available agency of research within and without its particular field, and makes use of every kind of record in which the history of man is embodied.
The sources of information to be drawn upon in these researches
are comprised under two principal heads: (I) In- Sources of infor- tentional or purposeful records, and (II) noninten- fui Records tional or fortuitous records. The intentional records
are of five forms, as follows: (1) Pictorial, as in pictures and pictographs; (2) major objective, as in commemorative, monumental works; (3) minor objective, as in quipu and wampum;
1
2 BUEEATJ OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
(4) oral, as in tradition and lore; (5) written, as in glyphic and alphabetic characters. It should be observed that with each of these categories goes necessarily a mnemonic element — a very considerable dependence on memory.
Fortuitous records take numerous forms: (1) The great body of products of human handicraft to which no mnemonic Fortuitous Records significance has ever been attached; (2) the nonma- terial results of human activity as embodied in lan- guage, beliefs, customs, music, philosophy, etc.; (3) the ever-existing body of unpremeditated memories which accrue to each generation and are in part transmitted adventitiously; (4) the record embodied in the physical constitution of man, which, when properly read, aids in telling the story of his development from lower forms; (5) the records of intellectual growth and powers to be sought in the nature and activities of the mind; (6) the environments which may be made to assist in revealing the story of the nurture and upbuilding of the race and its culture throughout the past.
It is from these diversified records, present and past, that the story of the race — of the seven grand divisions of human Relations of Ar- history — must be drawn. Archeology stands quite tory °gJ apart from this classification of the science of man,
since, as will be shown, it traverses in its own way the entire field of research; howbeit, it usually claims for its own more especially that which is old or ancient in this vast body of data. It is even called on to pick up the lost lines of the earlier written records, as in the shadowy beginnings of glyphic and phonetic writ- ing, and restore them to history. It must recover the secrets of the commemorative monuments — the tombs, temples, and sculptures in- tended to immortalize the now long- forgot ten great. It must follow back the obscure trails of tradition and substantiate or discredit the lore of the fathers. It must interpret in its way, so far as interpre- tation is possible, the pictorial records inscribed by *he ancients on rock faces and cavern walls, these being among the most lasting of purposeful records. All that Archeology retrieves from this wide field is restored to human knowledge and added to the volume of written history. Archeology is thus the great retriever of history.
The science of Archeology is equally useful in the field of the fortuitous records of humanity, for it reads or interprets that which was never intended to be read or interpreted. The products of human handicraft, present and past, which have automatically re- corded the doings of the ages, are made to tell the story of the strug- gles, the defeats, and the triumphs of humanity. The fortuitous records embodied in the nonmaterial products also of man's activi-
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 3
ties are made to cast a strong light on the history and significance of the material things of the past. Even the body of knowledge gathered from many sources and stored in the memory of the living, though untrustworthy as a record, may be made, if wisely employed, to illumine the past; and the physical and psychical man of to-day are in themselves records and may be made to tell the story of their own development, thus explaining the activities and the products of activity throughout the ages. All that Archeology gathers from this wide field of research is contributed to the Archeology the volume of written history. It is thus not only the
Revealer of His- . „ . 111
tory retriever of that which was treasured and lost, but
equally the revealer of vast resources of history of which no man had previously taken heed.
In the great wrork of assembling the scattered pages and com- pleting the volume of the, history of man, Arche- Prehistory signi- ology may well claim first place among the con- written History tributing sciences. The range of its activities may be further defined. Since history must be regarded as embracing the entire record of the race, whatsoever form it may take, there can in reality be no such thing as " prehistory," and hence no such thing as a " prehistoric period " or " prehistoric archeology," hence these terms, if used at all, should not be employed without first fully setting forth their particular application. There can, indeed, be no satisfactory or scientifically useful classification or separation of the history of human culture as a whole or even with a single peo- ple on a basis of time or period. The beginning of Relation of Writ- the written record is not the end of the unwritten
ten and Unwritten
History record either for the race as a whole or for any of
the groups. We may think of a people as having a period of written history, a period dating from the beginning of writ- ing among that people, or we may think of a people without writing, which by accident of geographical proximity has found a place in the written record of a neighboring, more advanced nation; but the unwritten phase in no case ceases with the beginning of the written phase of the history of any people; a large part of the current his- tory in all cases, being unwritten, passes, unless temporarily con- served by tradition or by some nonpurposeful method, directly into the vast body of the subject matter of archeological science or other- wise into the great blank of oblivion.
Referring to the American Continent, and using the term " pre- historic " in the usual sense, we may think of the prehistoric period as ending and the historic as beginning with the landing of the Norsemen in the year 1000 A. D. ; or, disregarding this episode as a mere negligible incident, without practical effect on the prehistoric
BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
status of the aborigines, we may think of the landing of Columbus as ending the prehistoric and beginning the historic period. It is customary to speak of the historic period in America as thus limited, and of the prehistoric as covering all previous time (fig. 1), but this is an unscientific classification. The Columbian discovery did not reveal the American aborigines or make known their place in history, save in the most limited way. The race and its culture con- tinued for a long time practically within the realm of the prehistoric (the unknown and unwritten), somewThat as indicated in figure 2. The actual separation, the scientific separation, is between the written and the unwritten. As commonly expressed, the prehistoric phase of
PK£$£MT TfME
FIG. 1. False relation of the historic (written) to the prehistoric (unwritten).
FIG. 2. True relation of the historic (written) to the prehistoric (unwritten).
the history of a particular people or ethnic group would end and the historic phase begin with the first written record of that people. Thus the prehistoric status of the Peruvians would end and the his- toric begin with the arrival of Pizarro, of the New Mexicans with the arrival of Fray Marcos de Niza, and of the Virginians with the landing of the Eoanoke colony. The prehistoric (unwritten) period of the valley of the " Eiver of Doubt " would end and the historic would begin when Roosevelt made his much-challenged report; the previous history of the valley, being outside of the range of history- recording peoples, is prehistoric — that is, without designed record, and so it largely remains.
Although the first written record of a people may be regarded as marking the beginning of the period of written history of that people, the separation of the two fields is not thus correctly indi-
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 5
cated. In each case the written record covers but a limited portion of the historical subject matter of the people of the area concerned, as indicated in figure 2. In fact, the unwritten, the true prehistoric, never ends, and the task of the archeologist has an unlimited future as it has an inexhaustible past. Concrete examples may serve fur- ther to illustrate the relation of history and the so-called prehistory — that is, of the written and the unwritten phases of the human record. The history of Rome is recorded in a thousand volumes, yet there is much more of Roman history within the period written Rome Un' of written history which can be known to the mod- ern world only through excavation and research, and much more still which can not be known at all. The archeo- logical phase of the history of Rome begins practically w^ith the present and extends backward over a succession of periods passing indefinitely beyond the dawn of its written history toward the be- ginning of man's career in the basin of the Mediter- written and Un- ranean. Even a modern city like Washington, now
written Washing- / <•
ton little more than a century old, has a record of events
entombed beneath its pavements awaiting the pick and spade of the archeologist of the future. Resting upon a sub- stratum filled with relics of the aborigines, the subject in recent years of extended and important research, is a layer of deposits pertaining to the British colonial regime, and a stratum superposed upon this inclosing traces of nearly a century and a half of the modern Repub- lic. The bulk of the unwritten is by far greater than that of the written. It would seem thus that the Capital City has its unwritten record to which, however, the archeologist-historian may not need to apply, since the written record is exceptionally complete, unless, indeed, a fate like that of ancient Rome should in the fullness of time fall to her lot.
That antiquity is not a necessary attribute of the subject matter
of archeologic science may be further illustrated.
Archeology Not The contents of an ancient village site in Asia Minor,
Limited to Antiq- . . n
uity for example, deserted before the beginning of the
Christian era, contains ruined buildings and other works, as well as minor relics of various kinds, on and beneath the surface. All of these antiquities are properly within the purview of the archeologist, who uses them in determining people, culture, period, relations, and origins. The contents of a village site deserted by a primitive tribe in Arizona a generation ago furnishes nearly identical remains, all of which are equally well within the purview of the stu- dent of archeology, who may use them in determining the people, the culture, the period, relations, and origins as in the other case. The period does not in any way affect the status of the subject matter of the science of archeology. Events lost to memory but yesterday and
6
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
unwritten can be restored to the realm of the known only through the agency of this science. Objects lost to sight but yesterday and unrecorded can be restored to the realm of the known only by archeo- logical research.
The wide range of the field of Archeology may be made more fully apparent by a consideration of the accompany- ing diagrams, in which the field of human history, represented by the space between two diverging lines, is assumed to begin at the bottom with the birth of the race, to widen with the ages, and to end at the top with the present time. On this field is laid down (fig. 3) a theoretical scheme of the rela- tion of the wholly unrecorded (A) to the whole body of recorded
PXESEHT TIME
FIG. S. Relation o* recorded to un- recorded history.
FIG. 4. Relation of the unrecorded history to the purposely and fortuitously recorded history.
history (#). It is clear that in the earlier stages the wholly un- recorded must occupy a large part of the historical field, but records of a fortuitous kind, consisting of the physical remains of man and the simpler forms of his works, have been preserved under certain favorable conditions from the earliest times, as indicated at C. With the passing ages this area increases in importance, and new forms of record arise, gradually occupying a considerable part of the field. It is assumed that purposeful records began perhaps during the early stages of savagery (fig. 4, Z>), the point in intellectual evolu- tion at which the suggestion of keeping in memory past events and of fixing dates of present and future events dawned upon the mind. The five forms of purposeful record which arose — pictorial, minor
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES — PART I
objective, monumental, traditional, and written — had beginnings, we may say, at />, E, F, G, II, respectively (fig. 5). Insignificant and of slow development at first, the purposeful records gradually expanded, as indicated in the diagram, so that to-day they occupy an important place in the historic field, the written record having in- creased in scope with exceptional rapidity.
It is observed that the several purposeful records, although kept up continuously from generation to generation, are not necessarily permanent, for while additions are made to-day, the records of yesterday are being ob- literated. All fade out with the passing of the years, and are lost,
All Records Fugi- tive
P#£S£NT TIME
FIG. 5. Relations of unrecorded his- tory and the several forms of record.
FIG. 6. Relative permanency of the several forms of record.
though at different rates, as indicated in figure 6. The traditional records (b) persist for a few generations only, or at most a few centuries. The monumental mnemonic records (<?), of which the dolmen and the pyramid are examples, are durable as structures; they suggest their purpose and tell of the customs of the time; but the associated record, being unwritten and hence dependent on tra- dition, is soon wholly lost. Even the written record has in many instances lost its significance, as in the case of dead tongues, becom- ing thus a part of the subject matter of archeological research, and if not thus retrieved passing into oblivion. The minor mnemonic (d) are hardly more permanent. The quipu, for example, dug from
8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. GO
a Peruvian grave contains no hint of the record which it was in- tended to keep, and is without significance except such as it may acquire through the efforts of the archeologist.1
The pictorial record (e) alone, while it endures, retains and con- veys a considerable measure of its purpose and significance ; for the story, graphically told, is intelligible in part at least to all men of all times.
It is apparent from the above that the enduring portions of all material forms of record may in time become part of the subject matter of Archeology, so, as before shown, it is plain that this science must traverse the entire field of human history, howsoever recorded, drawing its data from the whole record, purposeful and fortuitous, present and past, contributing the product to the ever-growing yet insufficient and never fully permanent body of written history.
To-day the realm of unwritten fortuitously recorded history is still vast as compared with that of written history, research having made hardly more than a beginning in its exploration of the scat- tered archives of past ages; but the inquisitive turn of the civilized mind respecting antiquity will have its way, and in time the story of the past of man in most of its essential details will have been, through the agencies of Archeology and contributing sciences, so fully told, though never to be completely told, as to become in its principal outlines a part of common knowledge.
Although we speak of permanent records, harboring the delusion that civilization has achieved means of perpetuating a knowledge of human events, it must be allowed that, as has been shown, no known record really perpetuates indefinitely; stone crumbles with time, and books are eaten by worms or destroyed by fire and decay. Nothing of history approaches permanency save through purposeful repetition in books and on monuments, and even this means affords but a shadow of perpetuity, since this repetition can continue only so long as a kindly nature continues to fertilize a mutable and finite world, permitting the race to survive and its higher phases of culture to flourish.
1 An extraordinary example of objective mnemonic record is furnished by the practice of the Incas of Peru. The mummied bodies of the earlier rulers were brought out at stated periods and awarded the same daily service by their descendants as when living. By this practice a body of memories relating to the most important personages and events in the history of the nation, extending over a period of several hundred years, was pre- served ; yet the record thus kept alive was necessarily restricted in scope and in a few generations must have become in large part vague and merged with myth.
II. RESOURCES AND AGENCIES OF AECHEOLOGIC
SCIENCE
THE nature and extent of the wide field from which the stu- dent may gather the scattered records of human history have been suggested in the preceding section. Although the field of archeological research is generally understood to be limited
to ancient or old things, and it is with these that the scEncT68 archeologist has more directly to deal, yet it appears,
as already indicated, that all phenomena, natural and artificial, material and immaterial, mundane and celestial, by the study of which the history of man may become better known, are, with the cooperation of auxiliary sciences, drawn upon and made to contribute to the result.
The principal sources to which the archeologist may directly ap- peal regarding the history of the peoples of the western world may be thought of as eightfold, as follows: (1) The living peoples, the ten or more million members of the American race distributed in numberless groups between the Arctic and the Antarctic, and pre- senting physical and mental traits of great interest, traits which, well understood, must assist materially in interpreting the peoples of antiquity; (2) the remains of the dead of past generations preserved in graves, tombs, and caverns, and found fossil in geological forma- tions; and in addition the osseous remains of such genetically related forms, assuming their existence, as may have occupied the continent in past periods, from all of wrhich sources facts of value may be gathered; (3) the various activities of the living people, which afford a key to the activities of the past; (4) the great body of material products of the arts and industries of the present aborigines, the study of which in regard to manufacture, form, use, significance, and genesis is of the utmost importance to the student of the past ; (5) the vast body of monumental works (mounds, temples, fortifications, tombs, etc.) and industrial remains (mines, quarries, aqueducts, reservoirs, roads, bridges, etc.) of antiquity and the innumerable minor relics of the handicrafts obtained from graves, tombs, and caverns, scattered at random over the surface of the land, and embed- ded in superficial formations, upon which main reliance must be placed for a knowledge of what man has accomplished in past times and the manner of its accomplishment; (6) the literature of 400 years — a treasury of fact and a pitfall of error from which the stu-
9
10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
dent must select with proper discrimination his historical data; (7) the considerable body of current and traditional information variously acquired and conserved in the minds of the current genera- tion, whose knowledge is not necessarily included in books but which may be often drawn upon to advantage; and (8) the diversified environments of the tribes and the nations which have served to mold both people and art and which must be understood as an essential foundation for the study of the evolution of culture.
Auxiliary agencies which may be called upon to contribute mate- rially to the researches of the student in the great field thus suggested are numerous and highly important. Inspired by the hope of learning some- thing tangible of the origin and mutations of the race, the genetic relations of man with other living forms past and present, the story of his development, and his possible destiny, the somatolo- gist weighs and measures him, the anatomist dissects his body, the microscopist exposes the structure of his tissues, the X ray discovers secrets of his anatomy heretofore unrevealed, the sociolo- gist studies him as a social being, and the psychologist seeks to comprehend his mental make-up. Still other branches of research may contribute to the result. The geologist is called on to identify the formations in which his remains occur and determine questions of age; the paleontologist digs up the fossil forms associated with the various strata, thus determining the confreres of man in the successive periods of his biotic career; the geographer stands ready to record upon the map the distribution of the diverging groups over the various land areas of the globe at all stages of his history ; and even the astronomer determines the mutations of mundane and celestial forces by means of which the destinies of man as well as of all living things have been and must be determined. The science of Archeology seeks to utilize properly all of these varied sources of information and agencies in the task of restoring the past, and in proportion as its devotees are masters of the entire field will they be able to spread before the world the story of the origin, the early struggles, the comings and goings, the ups and downs of the hordes, the tribes, and the nations, and to interpret the laws responsible for the diversified results, racially and culturally.
While the resources enumerated are or may be drawn upon with gratifying results, the sources of misinformation
fo°rUmationf MiSn" are no less a subject of archeological concern. These comprise, referring especially to America, the mis- interpretations and errors embodied in four centuries of literature, among which are the imperfect observations and erroneous deduc- tions of a host of amateur explorers and would-be historians. Espe- cially to be deprecated is the utilization of this class of observations
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 11
by enthusiastic supporters of vague theories and preconceived views, and the demand for sensational matter by the public press, a large contingent of which is ready to accept for public consumption what- ever is novel or sensational, without serious regard for its verity. The diversity of invented and exaggerated statements which find
currency is, indeed, appalling. The world hears con- Faise Reports stantly of the discovery of skeletons of giants and
of pygmies ; of caverns filled with mummified bodies and rich plunder; of ruined cities abounding in marvelous works of art ; of hardened copper ; of walls and buildings of astonishing mag- nitude ; of sunken continents ; of ancient races associated with extinct species of animals ; of inscribed tablets of doubtful origin and extraor- dinary import ; of low-browed crania attributed to prehistoric races but which are mere local variations or pathological freaks ; of fossil bones of animals parading as the bones of man ; of reputed petrified human bodies which, on inspection, turn out to be of modern cement ; of faked pottery, metal work, and the like, so well wrought and so insidiously brought to the attention of scholars as to have become in certain instances the types of antiquity; of learned readings of undecipherable inscriptions; and of the remains of man and his culture from formations of all ages, dating from the present back to the Carboniferous age. The output is so great and the public
mind so receptive to error that the tide of misinfor- Tenacity of Error mation keeps steadily on, hardly reduced in bulk by
the never-ceasing efforts of science. The compilations of a Bancroft, a Winsor, or a Fiske, illumined as they are by excep- tional genius, could not always rise above the vitiated records upon which they drew ; and our best authorities in many cases are subject to the danger of combining the original errors into new fictions so compounded and difficult of analysis as to elude the vigilance even of the critical scientific world.
From the first, potent agencies of error have conspired to obscure
the aboriginal record. The attitude of the propa-
Sanda of Christianity at the period of discovery was
such that the first impulse of the Spanish conquerors was to destroy at once all traces of the native religion, and a vast number of important sculptures, the "idols" of the people, were mutilated or beaten to fragments, and the native books and paint- ings, the treasures of native learning and art, were ruthlessly de- stroyed. The impulse to destroy was perhaps not so strong on the part of the French and English when they reached North America, but this may have been due in part to the fact that there was little to destroy that could be regarded as dangerous to the cause of reli- gious fanaticism.
12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
The loss to history through this policy of destruction is beyond compute. The thought of preserving a record of the native people and the strange cultures which they had developed seems to have entered the minds of but few until 300 years had passed, and even then it was only when questions of the geological antiquity of man came to the front in Europe that it was deemed worth while to in- quire into the present or the past of the aborigines of America as scientific problems. The work of sifting the truth from the liter- ature of this period is a task surpassed in difficulty only by that of the explorer who essays to dig his data from the ground.
III. PEOGKESS OF ARCHEOLOGIC RESEARCH
SCIENTIFIC research in the domain of American archeology did not begin until well along in the nineteenth century, and for a long time the meager disquisitions respecting the remains of antiquity were colored by speculative interpretations and handicapped by the point of view imposed by Old World conditions. Gradually, however, archeologists have broken away from the thrall of the past and have exposed many of the fallacies which had grown into settled beliefs, and now the records of prehistoric times are being interpreted in the light of their own testimony. The public, however, is slow to follow and the cloud is not fully lifted from the popular mind, which seems prone, perhaps from long habit, to find error more fascinating than truth.
Among the fallacies which early took hold of the popular mind, appearing everywhere in the older literature, are Popular Fallacies those of the presence in America of civilized pre- Indian populations. The mound builders, so-called, were supposed to have reached a high stage of culture and to have disappeared completely as a race, a conclusion The Mound Build- reacnec[ after superficial examination of the monu- mental remains of the Mississippi Valley. This idea has held with great tenacity notwithstanding the facts that many articles of European provenance are found in the mounds as original inclusions, indicating continuance of construction into post- Columbian times, and that the aborigines in various parts of the American Continent, as in Mexico, Central America, and Peru, when first encountered by the Spanish invaders, were occupying a culture stage far in advance of anything suggested by the antiquities of the Mississippi Valley.
A fallacy similar to that regarding the mound builders fastened
itself upon the ancient cliff dwellers of the arid re-
The Cliff Dwellers gion when traces of their interesting culture first
came to light, but more recent investigation has
shown that the ancient occupants of the region who built and dug
their dwellings in the cliffs were in general the immediate ancestors
of the Pueblo tribes which occupy the same region to-day.
13
14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
Speculation has ever been rife regarding the origin of the abo- rigines and supposed significant analogies have been made out with nearlJ every race and. people of the Old World. A favorite theory of the earlier stu- dents of the subject regarded them as descendants of the "lost tribes of Israel," and as a result, oddly enough, literature has been enriched by the publication of several valuable works on the habits and characteristics of the Indians, written with the view of establishing identities between the two races — works which otherwise would never have existed. Perhaps the most important of these works are Adair's History of the North American Indians (1775), and Lord Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities (1830-48).
The myth of Welsh settlement in North America has also been very persistent, descendants of a colony, reputed to have been founded by Prince Madoc about 1170, having been identified, mainly on linguistic analogies, with numerous tribes, including the Tusca- rora, the Mandan, the Hopi, and the Modoc.1
The literature of Middle and South America records many at- tempts to identify the native tribes with foreign peoples, the mis- conceptions beginning with the belief of Columbus that the people of the New World were identical with those of far Cathay; and a mythic Atlantis has had a large share in the theoretic peopling of the western world. The laborious compilations of Donnelly, though marshaling all available facts and suggestive culture analogies, fail to give this latter myth a scientific standing. The fascination of these misconceptions is well illustrated by the recent elaborate and costly staging of a play which embodied, not unknowingly, most of the errors regarding our aborigines which men of science have been combating for half a century. Fortunately, the play had but a short run, not, however, because it promulgated error, but because of other defects which the public was able to appreciate.
Among the varied misconceptions embodied in our literature is the belief that the native culture had reached before Theory of Degen- the Columbian discovery its highest development and had given way to a period of general decadence, con- forming thus with the fate of certain Old World civilizations. Al- though frequently promulgated, this theory is not fully sustained by facts with regard to the race as a whole ; doubtless some advanced groups, as the Maya, had reached a climax of progress and had retrograded, but it would be difficult to prove that any of these cultures, represented as they are by important works of sculpture and architecture, were on the whole greatly superior to the culture
1 Consult Mooney, The Growth of a Myth ; and Bowen, America Discovered by the Welsh.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 15
achievements of the Aztec or the Incas at the period of discovery. Among the conciliatory offerings of Montezuma sent to the approach- ing conqueror of Mexico were certain works of art unsurpassed on the continent for technical perfection and esthetic refinement, and the culmination of Mayan culture development, even if decadent at the period of conquest, could not have been remote. The remarkable stucco embellishments of the city of Palenque, for example, exposed in a peculiarly destructive climate, on the pillars, roofs, and roof crests of the great buildings, are not entirely effaced to-day, and this evidence of reoentness can not be fully discredited by the chrono- logical determinations of archeologists obtained through a study of the inscriptions, since these so far as read may not represent the later stages of the local development.
It is not proposed in this connection to scan the literature of the earlier centuries for scattered allusions to the antiquities and to the pre-Columbian history of the aborigines, as this would be a work of great magnitude, but to recite in the briefest manner the begin- nings and progress, especially in the north, of the scientific investi- gation of antiquities.
Although passing attention was paid to the great earthworks of the Mississippi Valley by numerous early settlers and North America ^ expl°rers5 no serious discussion of these antiquities appeared until the first quarter of the nineteenth century; the minor antiquities attracted even less attention. The earliest organized investigation of these remains was that of the American Antiquarian Society, incorporated in 1812. The first publication of this society was a paper by Caleb Atwater, which appeared in the Transactions of the society in 1812. The first con- tribution of particular note was that of Daniel Drake in 1815.
Well-directed and sustained research in the mound region was undertaken by Squier and Davis, 1845-4T.1 The views of these authors were in general correct according to more recent interpreta- tions, except those regarding the problem of the relation of the mound builders to the Indian tribes, the conclusion having been reached and embodied in the final pages of their great work that the mound builders were of an unidentified race of comparatively high culture and undetermined antiquity. As a record of the monu- ments and an interpretation of the lithic and other relics of art of the region this work takes high rank.2
During the second half of the century researches extending over a large part of the United States wrere rapidly initiated, and a vast body of substantial information was brought together and pub-
1 See Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.
2 For a notice of tho numerous early contributors to the subject, see Squier and Davis, op. cit. (preface) ; Haven, Archaeology of the United States.
38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt i 3
16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
lished by individuals, societies, and institutions, and by the Govern- ment. During this period a gradual change took place in the views of students regarding the mound builders, and at the close of the century there was practical unanimity in the view that the builders of the great earthworks were the ancestors of the Indian tribes found in possession of the general region, and that the culture rep- resented is not of a grade especially higher than that of the tribes first encountered by the whites in the lower Mississippi Valley and in some of the Gulf States to the east.
Little was recorded of the important antiquities of the arid region — the ancient pueblos and cliff dwellings — until after the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Government began the work of surveying transcontinental railway lines and mapping the " Great West."
The literature of the Spanish, Portuguese, and other pioneers in
the conquest and settlement of Middle and South America abounds
in references to the material culture, modern and
Researches in Mid- ancient, of the vast region occupied, but no organized
die and South ' fe .'
America researches were undertaken anterior to the expedi-
tions of Squier in Peru and Stephens in Yucatan and Central America, and not until recently have the Latin-American countries entered on the study of the native peoples and culture in real earnest. Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, and Chile have each conducted explorations and published results of great value, and foreign students, research organizations, and even foreign Governments have taken an active part in the work.
One of the most important problems of the American race, the last to be taken up in a serious manner, is that of Chronology the antiquity of the occupancy of the continent,
especially that phase of it coming within the realm of geology, and the researches in this field have not as yet advanced to a stage where definite and generally accepted conclusions have been reached. This topic will be presented at some length in the sec- tion on chronology. The literature of geological chronology is al- ready extensive but consists in so large a measure of the writings of inexperienced observers and bookmakers that it is perplexing rather than enlightening.
The most serious hindrance to progress in correctly interpreting the evidence of antiquity arose from the assumption on the part of a number of students that the course of human history in America must be parallel with that of the Old World ; that occupation of the continent was indefinitely remote and that the course of cultural development must correspond in every essential respect with that of prehistoric Europe; that traces must exist, and should be found, of the initial period corresponding to the European paleolithic and the
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 17
later stage duplicating the neolithic. This unfortunate assumption has cast a shadow over the whole American archeological field, not as yet fully dissipated. That the parallel is not complete, how- ever, is now generally recognized, and American antiquities of all stages and types are being employed to develop the history of man in America, whether or not in accord with Old World determinations. A large number of explorers who have conducted original re- searches in the field, contributing noteworthy data regarding an- tiquities, are cited in the section of this work devoted to an outline of the ethnic characterization areas of the continent.1
1 For extended lists of authors embodying in their works valuable data relating to the whole of the American field, consult Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America ; Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States ; Handbook of American Indians ; HrdliCka's Early Man in South America.
IV. PROBLEMS OF EACE AND CULTURE ORIGINS
THE archeologist, absorbed in the study of the multitude of monuments of past periods, full of interest in themselves, does not lose sight of the fact that his efforts relate to these monuments not as finalities of research but as means of accomplish- ing a great end. He regards them as the architect regards the sepa- rate stones with which the massive structure is to be built, or as the historian or novelist regards the paragraphs and chapters by means of which his creations are given to the world. He remembers that the final aim of research is to cast stronger light into the dark places of the history of man. In contributing to this end Scope of Research he goes beyond the realm of mere ancient things and seeks to understand not only the racial groups whose history he would especially reveal, but extends his view to the race as a whole and to the environments which, while limiting human achievement, have molded man into what he is.
The hypothesis of the unity — the biotic solidarity — of the human race now meets with very general acceptance, but there Unity of the Race is still much uncertainty in the minds of anthropolo- gists regarding the time and place of origin and the partings of the racial ways. In seeking to trace the American race backward in its history, by whatsoever means, the archeologist encoun- ters immediately the inquiry as to whether the beginnings are to be sought in the Old or in the New World. The theory of a New World origin which would make the Old World races offshoots of an American stock is held by but few and is sustained by meager evi- dence. To-day the consensus of opinion among students of the subject favors the view that the Old World gave birth to the human kind, and it follows that the earliest traces of his existence must be sought there, and that our researches must trend backward in that direction. It is, indeed, incredible that the American race, rep- Theory of Ameri- resented at the period of its greatest expansion by
can Origins Un- J f J
tenable hardly more than fifteen or twenty million people,
and these of homogeneous physical type and imper- fectly developed culture, not only should have peopled the Old World but should have peopled it with three races, the white, the yellow, and the black, highly differentiated in physical type and in culture achievement, and comprising the bulk of the world's population.
Traces of human occupancy are found in the Old World associ- ated with geological formations which are confidently assigned to 18
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 19
the beginning of the Quaternary period, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and it is incumbent on those who hold to the theory of American origin to establish an earlier occupancy of the New World. Two regions only in America have furnished testimony worthy of serious consideration in respect to this assumption — testimony which implies an antiquity so remote as to give color to the autochthonic assumption. These are the gold-bearing districts of California, where relics of advanced neolithic art are reported to have been found beneath vast flows of Quaternary lavas, and the pampas of Argen- tina, where even a middle Tertiary man is thought by some to have existed. The testimony in these cases is striking, and even pic- turesque, and is supported with enthusiasm by a few students, who are ready to stake their scientific reputations on the outcome. Re- cent investigations relative to North American as well as South American very early man show, however, that the testimony is really open to most serious question, and it appears that if it is to stand the test of criticism it must have much additional support.1 In view of these considerations the theory of an autochthonous origin of the American race may be, for present PurP°ses? set aside, and the problem of the arrival in the New World of racial and cultural elements originating in the Old World alone be given consideration. Not only does America furnish no tangible evidence of antiquity so great as to give support to the theory of autochthonic origin of the Ameri- can race, but, as just indicated, it has failed so far to afford satisfac- tory evidence of the arrival of man on the continent in remote geo- logic time. The problems pertaining to this subject are discussed in some detail in a subsequent section devoted to chronology and may be passed over here without further consideration.
The student pursuing inquiries with regard to racial origins in America turns to the known aborigines and their Asiatic origins somatic characteristics, historic and prehistoric, and seeks to discover significant suggestions of relation- ship with Old World races. Heretofore, knowledge of the peoples of northeastern Asia has been so meager that satisfactory comparisons with them could not be made, but recent researches have opened up this field and have demonstrated the marked similarity of certain of the northeastern Asiatic tribes to the American Indians. This fact, taken in connection with the geographical proximity of northeastern Asia and Arctic America, would seem to offer a satisfactory solution of the question of origin.
1 Holmes, Review of the Evidence Relating to Auriferous Gravel Man in California ; Hrdlio'ka, Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America ; Hrdlifka, Early Man in South America.
20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
Accepting the view that America was peopled from the Old World by way of Bering Strait, it follows that the culture Culture Relations introduced would be that of the Arctic, and, so far as observed, no other than primitive forms of native cul- ture have ever reached the shores of Bering Sea. All American cul- ture is classed as neolithic, but the range of achievement is extremely wide, and as we pass into the south it takes forms so diversified and extraordinary that the inquiry is frequently raised as to whether the Arctic gateway has been the only means of admission to ancient America. That the civilized nations of the Old World have never been in intimate relations with the tribes of the New World is ap- parent from the fact that so far as the material traces show pre- Columbian American culture was of strictly Stone Age types. The aborigines were without Old World beasts of burden, wheeled ve- hicles, and sail-rigged craft — essentials of the civilized state; they had no cattle, sheep, or goats — potent factors in the development of Old World sedentary life; they had little knowledge of iron or the smelting of ores — essentials in the development of civilization; no keystone arch — a principal requirement of successful building; no wheel or glaze in the potter's art ; no well- developed phonetic alpha- bet— the stepping stone from barbarism to civilization. Cattle, a civilizing agency of much importance in the Old World, could not have survived a long voyage, and the calendar, a device of the priest- craft, might not readily be transferred from shore to shore by occasional or chance wayfarers, but it would appear that the wheel as a means of transportation might readily appeal to the most primi- tive mind. That no extended contact with the civilized peoples of the Old World occurred in pre-Columbian times is strongly suggested by the fact that this device was unknown in America, except possibly as a toy. It appears in no pictographic manuscript or sculpture, the highest graphic achievements of the race. Charnay obtained from an ancient cemetery at Tenenepanco, Mexico, a number of toy chariots of terra cotta, presumably buried with the body of a child, some of which retained their wheels (fig. T).1 The possibility that these toys are of post-Discovery manufacture must be taken into account, especially since mention is made of the discovery of brass bells in the same cemetery with the toys.
Have we, then, any trustworthy evidence in the whole range of pre- historic material culture of the introduction into America from transoceanic sources of elements of culture other than those which might have arrived with migrating peoples by way of Bering Strait ? As the continents stand to-day, and considering primitive means of migration, there seems small chance of the arrival of waj^farers in
1 Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World, p. 174.
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I
21
any considerable numbers on the American shores except by this route, and the evidence of such arrivals, even if they actually took place, must be far to seek and difficult of evaluation. A primitive boat's crew reaching the Western Continent as voluntary voyagers or as wayfarers brought unwillingly by the winds and currents, even if hospitably received by the resident population, assuming such to have existed, could leave no physical trace of their presence that would last beyond a few generations, and the culture they happened to represent might not find even a temporary foothold. Yet germs of culture have sometimes wonderful potentialities, and a very simple device, a tech- nical suggestion, or a tenet of belief introduced by a foreign wayfarer (regarded possibly as a superior being) , might catch the primitive fancy, engraft itself upon the native culture, and in a very short period influence the whole current of its development. However, in- stances of this kind have not been observed and, in- deed, had they occurred, might be impossible of identification by means of archeologic remains alone. It may not be amiss in this place to inquire as to the kind of archeologic evidence which might be thought of as warranting the conclusion that transoceanic visitors had arrived on American shores in numbers sufficient to introduce culture germs of distinctive character. In beginning it is necessary that we exclude from the body of material to be considered all handiwork which bears the taint of post-Columbian influence. We have to consider, also, lest we misinterpret the meaning of the similarities, analogies, and identities in the cul- ture achievements of distinct peoples which arise and, from the nature of things, must arise, as a result of the like constitution everywhere of the human body and mind and the like environment the world over. It is not wise to throw these evi- dences overboard entirely or too rashly, for they may possess values of very different degrees. They may range from the merest fortuitous resemblances to correspondences so close, so intimate, and so complex that actual intercourse could be safely inferred. The nature of such possible evidence may be theoretically and briefly considered.
FIG. 7. Ancient wheeled toy from a child's grave, Mexico.
Value of Analogies in Culture
22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN" ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
The student examining certain collections of primitive antiquities discovers that a particular form of flint knife blade occurs in America and also in the Old World and explains the occurrence by the oft-observed fact that with given states of culture, given needs, and given materials, men of all races reach kindred results. When, however, he observes that the blade of the knife in each case is spe- cialized for hafting in identical ways, he wonders how such close correspondence in two important characteristics could occur. Press- ing his investigation further he discovers on the two continents other knife blades of chipped flint with curved and keen points and identi- cal specialization to facilitate hafting and a further identical elabora- tion for purposes of embellishment, and he begins to inquire whether the people concerned in making these two groups of artifacts are not somewhat closely related or have not in some way come in close contact. His interest is intensified when he observes that the groups of closely identical blades occur in two transoceanic areas at points of nearest approach, and also not in any case at more remote locali- ties on the respective continents, and he is astonished to discover further that the two areas involved are connected by oceanic cur- rents and trade winds by means of wrhich seagoing craft could make the ocean voyage from continent to continent with comparative ease. Later he finds that other objects of handicraft belonging to these adjacent areas have similar correspondences, and his previous im- pressions are decidedly strengthened. When, going more deeply into the investigation, he learns that analogous phenomena involving other classes of artifacts occur at other points, that in numerous localities on the shores of the one continent the culture traces have close similarities to those of the adjacent transoceanic areas, and that there are no such resemblances elsewhere, the evidence is cumu- lative to an overwhelming degree, and he concludes without hesita- tion, and concludes safely, that contact or transfers of peoples and transfers of cultures have taken place not only at one but at a num- ber of points.
Now, this is a purely suppositional case, but it is suggestive and justifies further pursuit of the inquiry regarding
Suggestive Anal- J • •/> £ u ui ±-
the significance or culture resemblances. Attention
may be drawn to certain noteworthy analogies which do occur between American and foreign archeological remains, due caution being exercised in their application. In New England and farther north is found a highly specialized form
of the stone adz known as the gouge (fig. 8), The stone Gouge which is abundant in the region mentioned, but
which disappears gradually as we pass to the south and west, with rare outliers in the Carolinas, the Ohio Valley, and the Lakes region but not occurring elsewhere on the continent. It
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I
23
In
does appear, however, in northern Europe (fig. 9) where the Atlantic is narrowest and most nearly bridged by intervening islands. The gouge was in the Old World a practical implement devoted to ordinary uses, as in the working of wood, digging, cutting, etc. T~ America it was also a thing of ordinary use. Within the same region in northeast Amer- ica, and thinning out as does the gouge to the south and west, is an object of rare
and highly specialized form, The Banner stone an axlike implement, known
as the banner stone (fig. 10) with tubular perforation for hafting and with extremely varied winglike blades. It is not found elsewhere in America. In northern Europe there is found a drilled ax (fig. 11) of similar type, and it is a noteworthy fact that this form of artifact throughout the Old World, though orig- inally perhaps a thing of use, had wide and diversified application as a symbol. The following very interesting and suggestive statement regarding the "Amazon Axe" is quoted from Nilsson : 1
Stone weapons of this kind are rather variable, and the central part is often much shorter than the figure here referred to, resembling that shown in figure 174. The original of this sketch is from the south of Scania, and is preserved in my collection, but is not finished, there being no hole for the handle; but this weapon is always known by both ends being much expanded and more or less sharpened. It is exactly like the axes with which the Amazons are armed,
FIG.
FIG.
Stone gouge - adz, New
England type, (i)
FIG. 11. Ax-shaped stone implement, FIG. 10. Ax-shaped "banner stone, "eastern United States, (i) Scandinavian type. (J)
wherever we see them represented. On a marble sarcophagus in the Museum of the Louvre, at Paris, bearing the inscription, " Scarcophage trouve' d Salonique en Macgdoinc" the warriors wield axes with one edge and a pointed sharp back; but all the Amazons have such two-edged axes as the one here sketched. The Amazons are represented with such axes even in other places also ; for instance, on some antique friezes in the British Museum. In a treatise on "The SwTord of Tiberius" (in German, 4to., with coloured engrav-
1 Mlsson, The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, pp. 71-72.
24 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
ings), an Amazon is also represented with a similar axe. It is called " Amazon axe." Xenophon mentions it in the " Anabasis," iv, 4 ; and Horace speaks of "Amazonia securis " in the Odes, iv, 4, 20.1
The American homologue certainly had no other than sacred and ceremonial functions. It may not be amiss, then, to suggest that pos- sibly in prehistoric times examples of this type of implement were carried by some voyager across the intervening seas and that being regarded by the natives as possessed of supernatural attributes these were adopted as " great medicine," spreading to many tribes and tak- ing a wide range of form. It does not appear an entire impossibility that a stone or bronze perforated ax of this type left by one of the Ericsson ships should have been the " ancestor " of these peculiar objects. Who will venture to say that these greatly varied, beauti- fully finished, and widely distributed objects may not have come into existence among the tribes during the 620 years separating the discovery of Vineland and the arrival of the English Pilgrims. This suggestion may not be worthy of serious consideration, since it is always preferable in such cases to seek origins near home. Dr. Gordon2 may well be right in his suggestion that the banner stone had its origin in northern America where among both Indians and Eskimos the whale's tail symbol was in common use, its form corre- sponding closely to that of the typical banner stone. Mr. Frank Gushing, a close student of such matters, is said to have advanced the view that this symbol originated in the South, and it is true that two-bitted stone axes are found in Honduras and perhaps elsewhere in Central America, but connection has not been traced.
Another example more noteworthy and of trans- Atlantic, even of world-encircling, analogy is observed in the northern Temperate and Arctic regions. A highly specialized slate spear or harpoon head (fig. 12), long, narrow, and bayonet-like, is found along with prehistoric burials in New England and neighboring sections. Nearly identical forms occur in the St. Lawrence Valley, in Green- land, and along the Arctic shores at intervals as far as Alaska, and again in Finland, Siberia, Japan (fig. 13), and Korea (fig. 14). Objects closely resembling these slate points in shape and man- ner of manufacture are not found, or rarely found, except along the
1 " This form of axe occurs with us during the Stone Age, not only of the full size of stone (pi. viii, figs. 173, 174), but also in the shape of small ornaments of amber for women (pi. viii, fig. 175), found also in gallery-graves, in West Gothland amongst other ornaments of amber. But what appears to me to be very remarkable, in an ethnological point of view, is that exactly the same form of axe which was worn as an amber ornament by the women in the North during the Stone Age was worn by Grecian women, being, however, in that country made of gold. In the comedy of ' Rudens ' (the Shipwreck), by Plautus, Act iv, Scene 4, vv, 112-116, it is said that the girl Palaestra, from Athens, amongst the ornaments given to her as a child by her parents, had also received such an axe in miniature, of gold ('securicula anceps') inscribed with her mother's name. This coincidence isi very difficult to account for. It appears to me to be one of those circum- stances which deserve the attention of the comparative ethnographer."
2 Gordon, The Double Axe and some other Symbols.
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I
25
northern borderland on either continent. The occurrence, though note- worthy, may or may not have significant relation with the movements of races or the transfer of cultures, but the correspondences in shape, material, size, and method of manufacture form an unbroken chain of genetic, accultural, or for- tuitous analogies entirely encircling the globe
where the land areas are most nearly con- tinuous. However, it should be noted that this particular form of implement, if it really , mm ,B1 originated in the East,
FIG. 12. Ground slate spear- head, New England type.
FIG. 14. Ground slate spear- head, Korean type.
FIG. 13. Ground slate spear- head, Japanese type.
Middle Atlantic Analogies
may have passed from Asia to America by the Bering Strait route along with many other primitive artifacts.
Along the middle Atlantic shores of America certain forms of artifacts are found which resemble more closely the corresponding fabrications of the Mediterranean re- gion than do those of other parts of America. The round-sectioned, petaloid polished celt is found in highest perfection in western Europe and in the West Indies and neighboring Ameri- can areas. It is absent or rare on the opposite shores of the Pacific. In the Isthmian region we find works in gold and silver and their alloys which displa}^ technical skill of exceptional, even remarkable, kind, and it is noteworthy that the method of manufacture em- ployed, as well as some of the forms produced, suggest strongly the wonderful metal-craft of the Nigerian tribes of old Benin; and, as possibly bearing upon this occurrence, we observe that the trade
26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. GO
winds and currents of the Atlantic are ever ready to carry voyagers from the African shores in the direction of the Caribbean Sea.
It may be observed that, although we fail to reach definite conclu- sions as to contact or relationships, the above instances are not merely those of simple resemblances as is the case with the multitude of examples cited by Donnelly in his Atlantis, but their interest is enhanced by the fact that in most cases the resemblances are given additional support and claim to attention on account of geographical relationships. However, none of the examples measure up to the highest standard of evidence and do not, therefore, take the rank of proofs.
Even more diversified and remarkable are the correspondences existing between the architectural and sculptural Mexican Analogies remains of Middle America and those of Southeast- ern Asia. In both regions the chief structures of the cities are pyramids ascended by four steep stairways of stone, bor- dered by serpent balustrades, and surmounted by temples which em- ploy the offset arch and have sanctuaries, symbolic altar sculptures, and inscriptions. The snouted masks of the Maya sculptures have an insinuating way of suggesting the trunk of the elephant and the upturned jaw of the mythical serpent is equally reminiscent of the treatment of the cobra jaw in the Far East. Temple walls are embel- lished with a profusion of carved and modeled ornaments and sur- mounted by roof crests and cupolas of elaborate and even pagoda- like design. There are present also in Yucatan, as in Cambodia, as supports for the great stone tables, balustrades, and lintels, dwarfish Atlantean sculptured figures, and it is especially noteworthy that some of these figures on this side represent whiskered
m€IL The tl>U6 significance of a11 this and more has
been sought again and again without satisfactory result. That some of these analogies should occur between works of the Antipodes renders the mystery more deep and might seem utterly to discredit the use of this class of evidences as proof of contact of peoples or close racial relationships. And yet is it an impossibility that the energetic builders of Cambodia, Java, and India, 2,000 years ago, should have had seagoing craft that might encircle the world? * We are compelled to allow that culture trans-
1 The feasibility of early south Asiatic communication with distant lands in early centuries of the Christian era, or even at an earlier date, is distinctly suggested by the
story of Chau (500 A. D.). " The ships which sail the Southern Sea [Early Voyages] and south of it are like houses. When their sails are spread they
are like great clouds in the sky. Their rudders are several tens of
feet long. A single ship carries several hundred men. It has stored on board a year's supply of grain. They feed pigs and ferment liquors. There is no account of dead or living, no going back to the mainland, when once they have entered the dark blue sea. When on board the gong sounds the day, the animals drink gluttonly, guests and hosts by turn forgetting their perils. To the people on board all is hidden, mountains, landmarks, the countries of the foTeigners, all are lost in space." — Hirth and Rockhill, Chau-Ju-kua, pp. 33-34.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 27
fer by this means may be reasonably thought of as a possibility but hesitate to allow that it is a probability.
" There is a great sea [the Mediterranean] , and to the west of this sea there are countless countries, but Mu-lan-p'i [Mediterranean Spain] is the one country which is visited by the big ships . . . Putting to sea from T'o-pan-ti [Suez of to-day] . . . after sailing due west for full an hundred days, one reaches this country. A single one of these (big) ships of theirs carries several thousand men, and on board they have stores of wine and provisions as well as weaving
lo°mS« If One SPeaks °f blg shiPS> the^ are none SO
big as those of Mu-lan-p;i." . . .
" If one travels by land (from Mu-lan-p'i) 200 days' journey, the days are only six hours long." 1
In the seventh century trade was carried on between Canton, China, and the Persian Gulf, a sailing distance of 6,000 miles, and the voyage was even continued to Japan, which would extend it to 8,000 or more miles, and so extensive wTas the intercourse between eastern and western Asia that by the " middle of the eighth century the Mohammedans at Canton . . . had become so numerous that in 758 they were able, for some reason which has not come down to us, to sack and burn the city and make off to sea with their loot." 2 In the eighth century the ships engaged in the Chinese trade with the southern Asiatics (Hindus, Arabs, and Malays) " were very large, so high out of the water that ladders several tens of feet in length had to be used to get aboard.3 The Government of China took steps to encourage the trade by sea, which became extensive, and the Em- peror sent a mission abroad with credentials under the imperial seal and provisions of gold and piece goods to induce "the foreign traders of the South Sea and those who went to foreign lands beyond the sea to trade " to come to China.4
It may be objected to the suggestion here made regarding the possible transfer of cultural elements by means of extended ocean voyages by the orientals, that the date is subsequent to the period of greatest American development, but who shall say that the mastery of the sea known to have been attained in the Orient 500 A. D. had not been achieved long prior to that date?
On the Pacific side of the American Continent numerous culture coincidences are noted which seem to indicate that the broad Pacific has not proved a complete bar to the intercourse of peoples of the opposing continents. It is indeed quite impossible to say with respect to the Middle American analogies whether the advanced maritime peoples of southeastern Asia one or two thousand years ago would be more likely to have reached America by way of New
1 Hirth and Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, pp. 142-143. 2 Ibid., p. 15. a Ibid., p. 0. 4 Ibid., p. 19.
28
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
Zealand and the Easter Islands or by sailing around Africa and across the Atlantic.
It has often been remarked that the faces of modeled and sculp- tured figures in southern Mexico have a suggestive Mongolian cast,
and the eyes in many cases are decidedly oblique. A pottery head from Vera Cruz, shown in figure 15, illustrates this char- acteristic. Oaxaca, on the Pacific side, has supplied many strik- ing examples of this peculiarity, and it is often remarked that the sculptured stele of Guatemala and Honduras present suggestions of facial and other analogies with the sculptures of the Far East.
Certain very re- markable Chinese axes of bronze are published by de Mortillet.1 One of these shown in figure 16 is described in the following lan- guage :
It very much resembles the polished stone axes of a type with tongue so common in Cochin China, and which have also been found in Cambodia, in the Laos, in Burma, in the Malay Peninsula, in Malaysia, in Tonkin, and in Yun-nan in the south of China. . . . The round hole which is found in the middle of the blade does not appear to have been utilized. It rather seems to be a relic of a more ancient form, perhaps in stone, destitute of the rectangular openings just referred to and in which the bands fastening the ax to the handle had to pass through a circular opening easier to pierce. Polished stone axes with tongue and round hole have also been described in North America, particularly in the south and southeast of the United States. South America, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia have also yielded axes thus pierced, of stone, copper, and bronze.
Another ancient Chinese ax of the same type as the preceding but larger and embellished with incised fretwork is shown in figure 16, #, 6, and two examples of American axes of analogous form are shown in figure 17, «, ft. The most striking analogies in these cases are the occurrence of an ornamental figure or inscription on the stem
FIG. 15. A terra-cotta head with oblique eyes, Vera Cruz, Mexico.
[Peruvian Analo- gies]
1De Mortillet, L'Age du Bronze en Chine, p. 403.
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I
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of the Peruvian and Chinese axes and of the round hole in the stems or body of the North American and Chinese specimens.
O
FiG. 16. Chinese bronze axes with perforate and decorated blades.
The stone adzes and pestles of the Northwest Coast resemble the adzes and pestles of the Pacific islands more closely than they do the corresponding tools of the eastern shores of America, and the
peculiar flat-bodied stone club or mere of the Samoan other islands is dis-
FIG. 17. a, Axlike stone implement with perforate blade, United States, b, Axlike implement of bronze with perforate and decorated blade, Peru.
tributed along the Pacific coast and scattered sparsely over the adja- cent regions to the east. With regard to relics of this general class, however, it is difficult to say whether or not the spread to America of a particular idea or form has taken place since the arrival of European ships in the Pacific.
30
BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
A good example of an art transfer which lies somewhere near the border between the historic and the pre-European invasion of the Pacific and is thus under the ban of modernity is exemplified by an old Chilcat mask
Northwest Analogies
Coast
FIG. 18. Antique Chilcat mask with Chinese coins set in as eyes.
having bronze Chinese coins set in the eye sockets (fig. 18). This specimen, which is described by Lieut. Bolles, was obtained from the grave of an did "medicine man who had flourished more than two
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES - PART I 31
hundred years ago, six successors having filled this office; each one living to a good old age." 1 The Indians were entirely ignorant of the origin and significance of the coins forming the eyes of the speci- men. This and many other like occurrences are regarded as sugges- tive of indefinitely early intercourse between the New World and the Old World across the Pacific, but are not decisive. Passing over other instances which might be cited and many seemingly significant analogies in arts, customs, and beliefs, we find that we have com- pleted the circle of the continent and are approaching, as has often been done before in the study of these problems, the main inter- continental thoroughfare, the proximate shores of Siberia and Alaska, at Bering Strait.
It has been sought in presenting these few of the many available examples of analogies between the material culture of the two worlds to avoid giving too much weight to simple resemblances such as are bound to develop between widely separated areas or dis- tinct environments, and to suggest those which exhibit unusually striking analogies or which combine close analogies with suggestive geographical relationships. Although none of the examples given are found to be fully satisfactory, or free from danger of challenge for one cause or another, as proofs of culture transfer, it is quite clear that the study of these analogies with a view of determining their exact bearing upon questions of origin is not to be ignored or cast aside lightly. It is only requisite that wise discrimination be exercised and definite conclusions be avoided until the evidence has been exhaustively collected and critically scrutinized.
It appears that although derived from transoceanic sources, the race must be regarded as essentially an American race, the result of coalescence of diversified Old World strains combined and modified in various ways producing numberless new strains under the Ameri- can environment, forming, however, at the period of Columbian discovery a measurably homogeneous whole. Aboriginal American culture, based on elements transferred with migrating groups, or by other agencies from the Old World, has in like manner been modi- fied, developed, and specialized into various well Americanized phases or forms, the result of the particular conditions under which the people lived.
, Chinese Relics in Alaska, p. 221. 38657° — 19 — Bull. 60, pt i - 4
V. PROBLEMS OF INTERCONTINENTAL COMMUNI- CATION
PROBLEMS of race and culture origins, discussed in some detail in the preceding section, are necessarily the subject of earnest research on the part of the archeologist, and a consideration of the first importance is that of the bridges and
ferries, the probable routes by means of which the proachUtoSAmerfcPa American Continent could have been reached by
migrating peoples from foreign shores. As the continental areas stand to-day, geographically and climatically, these possible approaches are, first, the North Atlantic chain of islands connecting northern Europe with Labrador; second, the mid- Atlantic currents setting steadily westward from the Afri- can coast to the shores of South America and the West Indies; third, the middle and southern Pacific currents traversing the vast expanse of ocean separating the Polynesian islands from South America; fourth, the Japan currents setting to the northeast from Asia and washing the shores of North America ; fifth, the Aleutian- Commander chain of islands connecting Kamchatka with Alaska; and sixth, the well-known route by Bering Strait. Other possible connections during remote periods and under different climatic conditions are across the polar regions north and south. Geological changes within the human period even may have obliterated other thoroughfares, and all of those enumerated above may have under- gone changes increasing or diminishing their availability as routes of migration. As they stand, the majority are certainly not prac- ticable for primitive voyagers and may never have been traversed by uncivilized man unless by wayfarers drifting Avith the Avinds or currents to transoceanic shores. It has been a favorite theory writh a few waiters that the North
Atlantic was wholly or partly bridged by land con- Route Atlantic nections in the remote past, that the Faroe Islands,
Iceland, and Greenland were so intimately connected that northern Europe could have furnished at least a part of the American population; but modern researches seem to discredit this theory, and James Geikie, one of our most learned authorities on continental evolution, does not hesitate to declare * that " not a single
1 Geikie, Fragments of Earth Lore, p. 283. 32
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 33
scrap of evidence " can be adduced in support of the once generally accepted idea of a preglacial or early glacial elevation of the northern Atlantic sea bed. The elevation of this region was probably assumed by glacialists as the best means of explaining the glacial period. This route may be omitted, therefore, from consideration as a prob- able avenue for European migrations to America at any date decidedly more remote than the voyages of Ericsson. Highly devel- oped water craft carrying fresh water and a food supply would be required to traverse the three formidable stretches of open sea between the Faroe Islands and Labrador. There are no currents setting in the proper direction to aid in this voyage, and, besides, storm-driven mariners are hardly to be counted on as colonists. The chance of voyagers having reached America intentionally from southern Europe with the aid of the trade Rou^e 1C Atlantic winds or the mid- Atlantic currents, prior to the time of Columbus, is. in the absence of evidence, perhaps too slight to call for serious consideration, although, as mentioned in the preceding section, seagoing craft sailed successfully the 2,400 miles of the Mediterranean long before the time of Columbus. The shortest possible voyage between Africa and South America is upward of 1,500 miles in length, and tides, currents, and wind would afford but slight aid and that one way only. The fabled Atlantis has been regarded as a possible haven to the voyager between the two continents, but geologists say that if an Atlantis ever existed it certainly disappeared long before men sailed the seas.
In the southern and middle Pacific there are thousands of miles of open sea separating South America from the nearest Pacific islands, a condition precluding the idea that very Route h Pacific primitive peoples could have fomd a thoroughfare here. The early Polynesians were venturesome sailors of the Pacific and probably even reached the Easter group, but between this and South America are 1,200 miles of open sea, and geologists have discovered no evidence tending to show that this great gap was ever bridged or diminished. The same may be said of the route of the North Pacific current, which originates in the Japan Sea and sweeps the shores of North America from the Aleutian Islands to the Gulf of California. Traversing these vast wastes of ocean was hardly possible, even by drifting voyagers, until within comparatively recent times. Such voyages can hardly have resulted in colonization or in seriously affecting blood or culture in regions al- ready occupied. The story of Fusang, the land acci- story of Fusang dentally reached by early Chinese voyagers, is not of consequence in this connection, since the time is re- cent, and since it is not at all probable that the land visited and re-
34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
ported by the wandering priests was America. It is well known that Japanese junks have been found floating in the near Pacific or stranded on the American shores, but this also has little bearing on the question of the peopling of America, since this continent was probably inhabited long before the Japanese junk became a sea- going vessel.
We now approach the route afforded by the festoon of islands
draped like a wreath in the Pacific between Kam-
Aieutian-com- chatka and Alaska. To-day with the boats of the
mander Island' . . . . . .
Route primitive natives of both coasts this is a possible
route, but the voyage has one great interval of 300 miles of open and generally tempestuous sea. It is not, there- fore, a probable route for very primitive times. Examinations of the ancient midden heaps and other inhabited sites of the Aleutian Islands give no encouragement to the idea that this was ever a thoroughfare for migrating populations. Dr. Dall's careful explorations1 indicate that three periods of Aleutian occu- pancy may be distinguished, estimated to embrace in all some 3,000 years or more. The earliest period is represented by the echinus eaters, a people of the lowest culture, seemingly without fire, and, so far as the evidence goes, without implements or utensils of any kind, and necessarily without boats or any other possible means of sailing the seas. The second occupants were fish-eating tribes, who may have had craft of the simplest kind, but certainly none fitted for long voyages. The people of the third period were more ad- vanced, approximating to the historic tribes in culture. The first and second occupants were necessarily of continental American origin, and the same statement is no doubt equally true of the third. In all the deposits not a trace was found indicating .that stranger wayfarers of higher culture, or of any culture, had ever passed that way. Had this chain of islands been a thoroughfare for migrating tribes this could hardly be true. Stations would have been made on all the larger islands and some indications of their presence would remain to the present day. The Commander Islands, forming the western links of the chain, were not inhabited when first visited by civilized man, and no traces thereon of occupancy of any kind have been as yet reported. There is thus an interval of more than 300 miles on this hypothetical route in which no evidence has been found of human presence, while an expanse of a thousand miles or more shows no trace of migrating peoples. None of the native peoples of the whole North Pacific coast from Japan to California, when first known to the whites, would have ventured to navigate the broad expanse of open sea that separates the outer members of the Aleu-
1 Dall, On Succession in the Shell-heaps of the Aleutian Islands.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES — PART I 35
tian group from Kamchatka without stronger motives for so doing than can now be imagined, and there is no evidence that at any earlier time the people of this coast were more enterprising or skillful in boat making and navigation, or that stronger motives for at- tempting the voyage existed than during the historic period. Trade by such peoples over such a route is not to be thought of. Neither is there evidence of the bridging of Bering Sea in this latitude by glacial or other ice, making migration feasible. It thus seems safe to conclude that the so-called Aleutian-Commander Island route can not be reckoned on as an intercontinental route of travel for primi- tive peoples.
Among the possible gateways to America, interest centers chiefly around that of Bering Strait. The distance from
land to land is only 40 miles> and during espe- cially frigid seasons ice forms a bridge so com- plete that crossing becomes a question only of the presence of migrating peoples and warm clothing and food supply for the journey. Here, then, supposing no important modification of geographical conditions, there has ever been an open thorough- fare from Asia to America for peoples of a culture sufficiently matured to enable them to withstand the rigors of Arctic climates. The question of complete land connection between the continents in Tertiary and Quaternary times, and especially during the warmer interglacial periods, has been much discussed, but the solution, whether for or against the connection, can not materially affect the case, since up to the present time no evidence has been found that man existed in this part of the world before or during the glacial period.
VI. PROBLEMS OF MIGRATION
HAVING adopted the view that America received its initial populations from Asia, the problems of migration present themselves for consideration. These problems are numerous and must be discussed in the main theoretically. They call for in- quiries into the location and extent of the cradle of the race; the agencies and processes of dispersal ; the period or periods of arrival at the gateway or gateways to the New World ; the continental rela- tions at and subsequent to the period of arrival or arrivals; the con- dition of the connecting bridges and intervening waters ; the climate ; and the distribution of the peoples throughout America at all periods down to the arrival of Europeans. Some of these problems are not susceptible of solution while others must always remain in a large measure mere matters of speculation.
The widespread dispersal of the genus Homo over Europe in Pleistocene time is an accepted fact. Osseous traces of his presence are found associated with geological formations of this period from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. His remains are associated with those of extinct species of animals, including the mastodon and mammoth, whose distribu- tion was still wider, and we are asked whether it is not reasonable to suppose that man should have spread with these creatures during periods of mild climate as far north as the Arctic Circle and why he should not have followed them into the New World by the Bering land route, which is believed to have been more or less permanently open. That this could have happened and that it probably did happen are taken for granted by supporters of the hypothesis of the very early occupancy of the American Continent. Howsoever plausible this view may appear, it may be claimed with confidence that up to the present time the Bering region, and indeed the far north generally, have furnished no evidence of the early presence of man on the continent, and that the testimony obtained in more southern areas and outlined elsewhere in these pages, as in California, Idaho, Nevada, Brazil, and Argentina, giving man and his possible predecessors a place in Tertiary and early Quaternary times, 36
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES — PART I 37
is too meager and unsubstantial to be accepted as conclusive where determinations of such great importance are involved. Notwith- standing these conditions, speculation regarding the possible course of human affairs in very early times may not be entirely profitless, since in all investigations in very obscure fields the discussion of reasonable hypotheses often assists in determining profitable lines of research. However, the present writer prefers to confine his speculations to a consideration of the possible course of distribution under conditions of climate and geography corresponding somewhat closely with those of postglacial and recent time. In support of the reasonableness of this procedure it may be asked why adolescent man more than the apes and monkeys should have taken to wander- ing into distant and inhospitable regions. When we consider that many of the larger species of quadrupeds have a widely distributed and reliable food supply, that nature furnishes them with ample protection from cold, and that they multiply rapidly, while the pre- cursor of man in all probability was unfitted to withstand the cold of Arctic climates or even temperate winters and subsisted on trop- ical fruits rather than on animal food, replenished his numbers slowly, and was not endowed with the fleetness of foot w7hich makes seasonal migrations possible, there seems to be sufficient reason for holding that distribution to the remote, and espe-
Normal Habitat of ciaRy ^ ^ fr[g{^ ^^ mugt haye been much
slower than would be the distribution of most mam- mals. He would have to become acclimated or to acquire sufficient intelligence to enable him to master the adverse conditions of the colder climates, and it seems that only highly developed, reasoning, fire-using, implement-making, and warmly clothed man would be equal to the task. It seems reasonable, therefore, to hold that the Hominidce probably did not begin to spread widely beyond their original habitat until the human status had been fully reached, nor far- into inhospitable climes until a considerable degree of culture had been achieved.
It appears that under conditions of land relations and climate which are thought to have prevailed well back toward the close of the Tertiary period, America could hardly have been colonized by a people not well skilled as hunters and fishers, acquainted with fire, and supplied with suitable clothing. To-day, deprived of fire and clothing, men could not survive a year north of 30° north lati- tude, and it does not seem probable that in earlier stages of develop- ment the genus could have any greater capacity for withstanding un- accustomed environments. It is assumed that in order to reach the New World from the Old, culturel-ess man would require a climate at the gateway which would compare with that of southern Cali-
38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
fornia to-day, but even if it could be shown that the climatic con- ditions were favorable at a given period it would still remain to be shown that representatives of the human stock actu- ally reached and passed the gateway at that period, no matter what other species of mammals accom- plished the feat. The establishment of such a proposition is neces- sarily dependent on the discovery of traces of human remains or relics of art in the region in question and in formations which can be safely assigned to the particular time. The failure to discover traces of decidedly early forms of crania in America must be re- garded as strong evidence against Tertiary or early Quater- nary arrivals, and the failure to discover traces of special elementary forms of art also gives countenance to this view.
The migrations of very primitive man would be directed, no doubt, much as are those of the larger mammals, along lines
Movements RaCe °^ ^east resistance, as determined by such factors as
multiplication of numbers, food supply, pressure of foes, geographical and climatic conditions, and instincts ac- quired during long periods of experience. The migratory move- ments of civilized man are governed more fully by well-defined ulti- mate considerations of welfare. The movements of the pioneers of
the race would not be these of simple migration from °f a native seat. Each step would be the result of pres-
sure of some form which by degrees would push groups out of their original habitat, thence from environment to en- vironment, each step requiring painful processes of exploitation and adaptation, each alike subjecting the group to danger of disaster and even of complete annihilation. We may fairly assume, however, that the perpetual struggle for existence necessarily engaged in by migrating hordes dealing with new and perplexing conditions would develop the hardihood and the higher attributes of mind which in time came to characterize the race, making possible the conquest of the remoter parts of the world.
Considering the conditions under which dissemination is here as-
sumed to have taken place, it seems highly improb- Peopiing of Any ^^ ft^t man wouid occupy all lands while still
Land Requires . .
Proof within the very primitive stages of culture progress,
and we are bound to insist at least that early or even late peopling of any land should not be taken for granted, but that it should be established by evidence of the strongest kind. When we recall the difficulty with which the civilized na- tions of Europe, possessed of seagoing craft capable of carrying many hundreds of men and making sea voyages of thousands of miles, and, what is quite as essential, inspired by the passion for
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES — PART I 39
discovery and conquest, reached far lands, it should not surprise us if primitive man, without boats or with craft of the simplest kind only and without far-reaching ambitions of any kind, left some of the remoter regions of the world, as, for example, America, for a long time undiscovered. The 10,000 miles of coast connecting tropical Asia with tropical America could be'trav-
* erS6cl bJ men af°ot in a feW yeaTS °f Continuous
progress, but for reasons already given we should not think of the movements that led to the peopling of America from the cradle in the Old World in the light of an ordinary journey. ( Fig. 19. )
The precursor of man at the period of his specialization as man probably occupied a limited area — possibly a single homogeneous environment — as do his nearest congeners, the African anthropoids, to-day, and variations of race doubtless took place as a result of dis- persal and consequent group isolation in unlike environments. "We may fairly assume that the precursor, during the stage of develop- ment corresponding, say, to that of Pithecanthropus erectus, occupied some area in southern or southeastern Asia not larger, perhaps, than that occupied by the gibbon or the orang to-day. Can we imagine, under climatic conditions at all resembling those of the present period, agencies sufficiently potent to have sent such a creature in haste northward a thousand miles, from tropical Java, for example, to the subtropical Irrawaddy, thence, later, 500 miles into the tem- perate Yellow River region, thence a thousand miles or more into the Amur Valley, and thence again 2,000 miles over the icy plateaus and ranges into Siberia, across the chill and barren tundra to the Anadyr, and finally to the Arctic Cape East? Almost equally dis- couraging would be the coastal route, where the tortuous outline of the land or the wide separation of the chains of islands would tend con- stantly to retard and defeat advance. A tendency to Pressure1*8 wander may be assumed, but pressure of multiply-
ing numbers would seem to be the only adequate agency in driving peoples from a land of warmth and plenty to the inhospitable regions of the north. At best a vast amount of time necessarily would be consumed with each of these great steps. In fact, the changes would be so profound in respect to climate and food supply that the wonder is that a tropical creature should ever succeed in accomplishing the feat.
It is reasonable, then, to assume that the movements would be made gradually, that in temperate climes the elements of culture would be acquired through repeated struggles with unfriendly con- ditions, and that great increase in population would take place before the farther north would be penetrated. We can not conceive of men under any combination of climatic and geographic condi- tions known to have prevailed since the closing stages of the Pliocene
40
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
penetrating the Arctic and passing into America without a well- assured food supply, without fire, without clothing, and without implements of the chase. Advocates of the Tertiary or early Quater- nary settlement of America may take exception to this view, since it is possible that climatic conditions were such in the later Pliocene, or possibly in certain interglacial epochs, that the far north was favorable to human occupation and that if geographical relations were favorable man may have spread to the ends of the earth. In
FIG. 19. Stages of migration in the peopling of America from tropical Asia.
reply it may be said that not only is the hypothesis of early general distribution under any conditions improbable in itself, but it is entirely without the support of evidence.
Figure 19 will aid in conveying a notion of the problems of mi- gration under known post-Tertiary conditions from
an Old W°I>ld cradle tO the New Woi>ld bJ wa7 °f
the Arctic gateway, and in suggesting the cultural transformations which would accompany each step of the process. In each successive environment from A to G man would come under
tlon'on
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 41
the sway of new conditions, and at G there would probably remain but few of his activities and possibly not a single article of food known at A. It is self-evident that with the progress of such a movement language, social institutions, government, religion, and all the arts of subsistence would be subject to frequent and decided modifications, and, assuming their existence at earlier stages of progress, agriculture, pastoral life, modes of transportation, metal- lurgy, ceramics, building arts, textiles, and religious and aesthetic art one by one would drop into disuse, passing little by little out of the knowledge of the northward migrating people; for there would be not only elimination of activities, but there would ensue quick forgettings. In one environment the preceding habitat in a few generations would surely be forgotten, and the knowledge of an art or industry based on local products and needs lost for a generation would be lost for good.
Assuming a common place of origin for the Hominidce in some part of the Old World, and climates and continental relations corresponding in the main to the present, the probabilities seem favorable to the view that dispersal to distant land areas would not take place until the populations had greatly multiplied and until considerable ad- vance had been made in the arts of humanity. Under known geographical and climatic conditions, America naturally would be the last of the great areas to be reached. As determined by the best authorities on the physical history of the Bering region, pioneer immigrants, according to the period of their arrival, might have been subject to at least three climatic periods: (1) A period of mild climate accompanied apparently by changes in the land relations of the continents at the close of the Tertiary era; (2) a long period of remarkable climatic and other changes, known as the Ice Age, which affected the northern hemisphere to an undetermined degree, and which at successive periods blocked the pathway to the east and possibly in some measure to the south, with intervening periods of mild climate favorable to distribution, at least on the Pacific side; (3) the so-called postglacial periods, wrhich throughout have ap- proximated the climatic conditions and geographical relations of the present day. The duration of this period was not uniform over the entire country but long or short according to the latitude, as fully explained under the heading Chronology. In the northern United States east of the Rocky Mountains the ice sheet persisted down to comparatively recent times, estimated at from 7,000 to 20,000 years ago, and wTould have interfered with the southern move- ments of population, while in the Rocky Mountain region highland and the Pacific slope the glacial occupation was less complete, and
42 BUKEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
it is possible that passage from north to south was never wholly interrupted.
In the absence of definite knowledge of the period of arrival of the pioneers and the beginning of the American occupancy, and of the climatic and other conditions to which all preglacial and glacial movements would be subject, it seems vain to enter upon a pro- longed theoretical discussion of the possible processes and progress of settlement during these periods. If, however, man by whatsoever routes he may have taken eventually did reach the gateway during these periods, there is no known reason why, at least during the intervals of milder climate, he should not have entered America and passed southward, if not eastward, over the northern continent.
Tribes acclimated in Siberia would readily make a home in the valley of the Yukon, but considerable time might elapse before they would overcome the intervening difficulties and reach the valley of the Columbia, the Mississippi, or the St. Lawrence. The journey along the coast from the Aleutian Peninsula to Sitka is practically impossible for any except peoples having seagoing craft. The cross- ing from the headwaters of the Yukon into the forest-covered area of the Northwest Coast or into the MacKenzie Basin would meet, aside from the possible interference of glacial ice, with untold diffi- culties for primitive peoples.
It may be assumed that movements southward would be, at first, extremely tedious and confined to very meager bands 8 at of wanderers, but the progress could well be more
First
rapid than the spread of tropical Asiatic peoples to
the north, as described in the preceding section. Instead of advanc- ing against new and unfavorable conditions of climate, the progress in America would be constantly to milder climates and more plentiful food supply. Then, again, successive advances in culture necessarily occurring would give distinct advantage to wanderers in the new land. The spread over the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf would be quickly accomplished, and from the central area the east and the west would be occupied with comparative ease.
The passage of peoples from North into South America would present no insurmountable difficulties under geographical conditions corresponding to the present. Unoccupied, these areas would offer no resistance to the advance of the pioneers, although the Isthmus might hinder on account of its prevalent jungles, marshes, and febrific dangers.
The passage from either North or South America to the Caribbean Archipelago would probably present problems closely akin t'o those of the passage of Bering Strait in the present period.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 43
It is not apparent that intercontinental transfer has been wholly blocked at any time to migrating hordes or wandering groups, for if not bridged by land the intervening space may have been bridged by ice or may have been an easy ferry after seagoing craft came into use. The question, then, is one not of the availability of the avenues of approach at one period or another but rather that of the actual arrival of migrating groups at the gateway and of the pressure necessary to push them one step farther from the place of their nativity after the manner suggested in earlier paragraphs. The arrival of the precursors of the race during glacial or preglacial times would depend primarily on the extension of his habitat to the shores of Bering Sea, and the improbability of this, as already pointed out, must be apparent to every one who gives serious con- sideration to the subject.
VII. PROBLEMS OF CULTURE DEVELOPMENT AND
MUTATION
IN THE entire field of anthropological research there occurs no such opportunity for the study of primitive life and the evolu- tion from it of the higher forms of culture as that afforded by aboriginal America, pre- and post-Columbian. This is due largely to the facts (1) that the cultures are, in large part, living cultures, which have been the subject of observation more or
less intelligent for 400 Jears ; (2) that the cultures of the Columbian and post-Columbian periods represent practically the whole range of aboriginal advancement so far as it is known, from the humblest stage of savagery to the very threshold of civilization; (3) that the prehistoric phases of these cultures are continuous with the historic and present and are thus readily inter- preted in terms of the well known; (4) that the antiquities are countless and have been left in large measure undisturbed by the activities of succeeding occupants. Notwithstanding these favor- able conditions the task before the historian of the race is not an easy one. The very early stages of American history, being scantily represented by art remains, must always remain obscure, and students of the subject are thus free to adopt such views as may occur to them regarding the probable course of events during the occupation and conquest of the continent. It is quite natural that
status ° la there should have arisen widely divergent views on the subject, views which, however, will doubtless tend to disappear as research makes headway. The writer finds it most advantageous for present purposes to follow up the general scheme outlined in the section dealing with the culture transformations of migrating peoples in their passage from the hypothetical cradle in Asia to America. The conception is that of a people not advanced beyond the simplest known stages of hyperborean culture entering upon the heritage of a previously unclaimed continent and in course of time, by continued migrations and multiplication of numbers, occupying all habitable areas and gradually reaching the various stages of advancement which characterized America at the period of European conquest. 44
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 45
Although the story of the evolution of the American peoples and cultures can of course never be known in great detail, Assumed Begin- ft is to be expected that the archeologist working in unison with the ethnologist, the biologist, the geolo- gist, and the geographer will be able to supply an approxi- mate outline of the course of events during the prolonged in- terval between the arrival of the pioneer settlers and the coming of Columbus. History comes to the aid of these sciences by con- tributing to the post- Columbian phases of the subject. Passing for the present over the theories ( 1 ) that the race originated in America and (2) that its arrival on the continent dates back to Tertiary or early glacial time, it is assumed that the occupation did not begin until the peoples of northeastern Asia had acquired a degree of cul- ture development somewhat analogous to that of the more primitive hunting, fishing, fire-using, igloo-building tribes of the far north in recent times. Arriving in limited groups, the movements would be hesitating and slow ; the pioneers would creep along the ocean shores, meander the river courses, and scale with much difficulty the moun- tain ranges and, avoiding the ice-clad and arid areas, by ^vironmeif* would Pass gradually into the temperate and tropical climes. The culture of the groups that lingered in the north would undergo little change, and the status of those who found their way into the vast forests and the featureless plains would continue, with local changes, practically on the same level from generation to generation and century to century. The people would necessarily continue to subsist by the precarious resources of unaided nature. In regions where the supply of fish was abundant during the year there would probably result practi- cally permanent settlement accompanied by limited progress in di- rections imposed by the environment, and in temperate and sub- tropical valleys complete sedentation would ensue and far-reaching changes would be initiated; resultant increase in numbers would gradually lead to the failure of the chase, and agriculture and do- mestication of animals, where tractable species were available, would follow and an artificial basis of food supply would be established. The hunter would lose his calling and would gradually share with the women the work of tilling the soil; new agencies of progress would come into being, new activities would arise, and specialization of labor would follow ; exploitation of resources would develop new sources of food supply and new materials for the handicrafts, and arts and industries would multiply ; the textile art, pottery, mining, metallurgy, and stone building would be added ; the graphic arts and pictography would lead upward toward glyphic writing; and skill in numbers and observation of the heavenly bodies would make
46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
accurate time keeping possible, giving rise to the calendar. Inter- change of commodities with neighboring peoples would increase and extended trade, with its manifold benefits, would widen the range of interests; customs, habits, social organizations, and even religion would take on new forms; the embellishing arts and luxury would find encouragement ; and commerce, war, conquest, and the command of labor would build up important nations, opening the way to civilization. From the more advanced centers of progress there would radiate in time by various agencies, germs of culture, slowly leavening the savage complex, a process still in active operation.
On this general plan it is thought to account for the greatly di- versified phenomena of aboriginal culture among the historic tribes, as well as that brought to light by archeological research and, since no clear evidence is found of culture stages distinct from the well known, it is here assumed, adopting the European nomenclature, that aboriginal American culture is exclusively neolithic, and that such " paleolithic "-appearing forms of artifacts as occur are not chronologically separable. This view may be adopted and held as a working hypothesis until reliable proof to the contrary accumulates, if indeed such proof exists. All American culture rising above the level of early neolithic would thus be regarded as belonging to America, always allowing, however, for sporadic intrusions of germs of higher phases which it must be conceded are within the range of possibility, especially in the more recent millenniums.
The agencies which conspire to shape up the culture of a people
to its highest state, and which from lack of sustain-
Agencies of Ad- jnor power permit retrogression and final obliteration,
vancemcnt, Active * to .
and Passive niay not be fully analyzed or determined in any given
case, but they are worthy of the close study which is being given them by students. The active dynamic — the subjective — forces are to be distinguished from the contributory, passive agencies; the first law of all sentient creatures is self-preservation and with the human race the second law is the law of betterment. The first provides for the perpetuation of existence, the second for the per- petuation of progress. These are the fundamental forces responsible for all human activity and all progress ; they apply alike to the indi- vidual, the family, the community, and all the larger social, political, and racial units. The contributory and passive agen- c^es are ^ne extremely varied constituents of environ- ment: (1) The diversified animal life, giving rise to the chase, which furnishes food, clothing, and shelter, and material for the arts and industries; (2) the vegetable life, supplying various alimentary .needs and a vast range of materials for the arts and industries; (3) the mineral world, whose limitless riches make
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 47
possible utilization of all the vast resources of nature. The relations of land and sea, of fertile and desert areas, and of valleys and mountain ranges may also have great influence, and climate may decide the cultural fate of peoples, confining them to the limited activities of the Arctic, stimulating them to activity in the Temperate Zone, and encouraging indolence in torrid climes.
The vast influence of environment as an agency in determining the culture of primitive peoples becomes more and more apparent with the advance of research. This is well illustrated, for example, by the highly specialized culture of the Pueblo tribes of the southwestern United States. It is here made manifest that it is not so much the capabili- ties and culture heritage of the particular stock of people that determines the form of material culture as it is their local en- vironment. Any primitive people finding its way into this land of cliffs, rock shelters, and ready-quarried building stone would soon be led under favorable stimulus to employ stone in building. The prox- imity of predatory peoples would bring about the building of strong pueblos in the lowlands and defensive resorts in the cliffs. The limitations of natural food resources would lead to the cultivation of the fertile spots in the isolated desert-bordered valleys. The arid conditions would make irrigation necessary and other special fea- tures of culture would perforce arise locally. The needs of trans- porting the produce of the fields and of the storage of water would lead to skill in basketry and pottery, and scarcity of large game yielding skins for clothing would make weaving necessary. Ac- commodating itself to the peculiar conditions, the social organization would take on localized forms. The mythology and forms of wor- ship which often come up from the remote past with little change would yield to local influences and even the origin myths would derive the tribes from local sources. The modifying influences of environment are well shown by the fact that the three or four stocks which arrived in the arid region from different sources have had their cultures almost completely remodeled and unified by the ex- ceptional local environment.
The culture of the mound-building tribes of the middle eastern
United States was not widely different in degree of
Environment i n advancement from that of the Pueblos, yet it was in
Mound Builders' . ' J
Culture most respects distinct in type. There were marked differences in agriculture, the building arts, sculp- ture, pottery, weaving, metallurgy, in implements and utensils, and in the arts of embellishment, as well as in social and religious customs — differences doubtless largely due to the impress of local conditions rather than to any extraneous or distant ancestral 38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt 1 5
48 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
cause. A remarkable theory is advanced by Shaler regarding the seeming degeneracy of the historic culture of this ethnic area as compared with the prehistoric, which serves to emphasize the potent influence of even single features of environment. It is averred with much show of plausibility that the advent of the buffalo into the Mississippi Valley — a comparatively recent occurrence — revolution- ized the culture, material and immaterial, changing it from the advanced, sedentary, agricultural type to that of seminomadic fol- lowers of the chase — a good illustration of the "call of the wild" which so readily affects even those who claim to be civilized.
When in his eastward movement the buffalo came to the semi-civilized inhab- itants of the Mississippi system of valleys, he brought a great plenty of animal food to the people, who had long been in a measure destitute of such resources, for they had no domesticated animals save the dog. Not yet firmly fixed in the agricultural art, these tribes appear, after the coming of the buffalo, to have lapsed into the pure savagery which hunting entails. To favor the pas- turage of these wild herds, the Indians adopted the habit of burning the prairies. These fires spread to the forests on the east, killing the young trees which afforded the succession of wood, gradually extending the pasturage area of the wild herds until the larger portions of the western plains eastward to central Ohio and Kentucky, probably even into the Carolinas, and southward to the Tennessee River, had been stripped of their original forests, making way for the vast throngs of these creatures which ranged the country at the time when we first knew it. With the rehabilitation of the hunter's habit, and with the nomadic conditions which this habit necessarily brings about, came more frequent contests between tribes and the gradual decadence of the slight civili- zation which the people had acquired.1
The highly specialized and mature culture of the Valley of Mexico may be attributed, in no small measure, to the vigor ** and diversified acquirements of a people which had passed through successive stages of migration and conquest in an exacting climate. Allowance must be made also for the influence of the Toltec foundation on which the Nahua people began their final building ; at the same time, however, aside from this it is clear that the influence of other features of the local environment has been profound. On account of its dimensions, physiography, climate, and natural resources the valley is the natural cradle of a culture and a nation. At the same time it is so related to surround- ing areas that its people, while retaining their own autonomy, were able to lay tribute upon the cultural resources of numerous less favorably placed neighboring peoples.
The culture of the Maya-Quiche of Mexico and Central America represents the climax of aboriginal achievement. Little is definitely known, however, either of the period or the place of its earlier manifestations, and there is thus slight chance of determining the
i Shaler, Nature and Man in America, pp. 184-185.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 49
elements which entered into its composition or the forces which carried it forward to its exceptional position. The environments in- volved are so diversified and extensive that little can Maya°c^ture ** be said regarding the part they have taken in giving character to the culture beyond that which is made apparent locally by a study of the antiquities. The particular fac- tors which have given Chichen Itza and Palenque, for example, some of the most striking characteristics of their material culture may be readily observed. The climate of Chichen, although subtropical, is comparatively dry, while that of Palenque is characterized by a rainy season of the most typical kind. In Chichen, as a consequence, the roofs of the buildings are flat, while those of Palenque are sloped to turn the rains, and from the crest or comb which this form of roof implies there has arisen an ornamental feature of most remark- able kind. The geological formations of the plains of Yucatan fur- nish soft massive limestone for building, while the formations at Palenque are hard limestones which cleave into slablike forms. In Chichen the architect, employing the massive stone, reached results impossible in Palenque. The use of large stones in building wras usual in Chichen and the colonnades of a single group of buildings include upward of 600 columns, round and square, of massive stone. In Palenque the architect built his columns of rough stone and faced them with stucco, while slabs of limestone of large superficial area were used in carving the many important altar panels and glyphic inscriptions. In Chichen the decorative relief sculptures carved in stone are rigid and expressionless, while those of Palenque modeled in stucco are remarkable for spirit and for freedom in form and line. Doubtless environmental differences have similarly affected the vari- ous minor arts of these people.
The subjective — the dynamic force in culture evolution — the ever- present desire for betterment, manifests itself in two distinct wTays : (1) By direct effort, as in the pursuit of activities designed to supply bodily comforts, to gain influence over environment, and to gratify esthetic longings; and (2) by indirect methods, as in appeals for assistance to the powers assumed to hold all favors at their disposal. Strangely enough, it is this indirect method, this appeal to the gods, the organized and sustained effort of the cults to promote welfare by this means, that has brought about, directly or indirectly, all that is greatest in human achievement, material and immaterial.
There can be little question that the wonderful achievements of the ancient city builders of Middle America were due to religious propa- gandism, that the enthusiasm engendered by supposedly inspired leadership enlisted the energies of a comparatively primitive people in the erection of the vast establishments now in complete ruin. It
50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
is equally apparent that the exhaustion naturally and inevitably resulting from the enormous waste of material resources and energy and the inability to sustain the burden imposed by the ruling class is responsible for the downfall, the utter ruin, and final abandon- ment of the great Maya cities. The house built on sand must fall, and these and other kindred results of human effort are builded on sands of the imagination. The more rapid the advance arid the loftier the rise, the more certain and complete the ruin.
It is not to be forgotten that various causes, such as change of climate, encroachment of enemies, earthquakes, and other agencies may have contributed to the lamentable result. These, however, were hardly in any case more than contributory agencies.
VIII. PROBLEMS OF CHRONOLOGY
IN a previous section devoted to the place of archeological re- search in human history the distinction was made between intentional or purposeful records and fortuitous or nonpurpose- ful records, it being premised that all records of whatsoever kind
serve the purposes of or contribute to the needs of Purposeful Records the chronologist. Purposeful records are a product
of somewhat advanced culture and take different forms as advance is made toward the requirements of the highly civilized state. In the beginning memory was the only means of pre- serving the lore of a people, but it is assumed that material things were in time associated purposely writh the memories in such a way as to assist in their preservation ; then pictures took, in part, the place of things, and the pictures became conventionalized by long use into half formal and then into fully formal signs. The formal signs became symbols of things, persons, facts, events, and ideas, and finally of sounds, and then written records took up the burden of chronology, initiating a new era in human progress and exerting vast
power in the world. These devices are, however, of Nonpurposefui Rec- comparativeiy recent origin and application, and the
chronologist who would determine the place of long past events in the scale of time must resort to the study of the non- purposeful records which are scattered along the pathway of culture progress.
The achievements of the American aborigines in building up a sys- tem of glyphic record are of much interest to the student of the evolution of civilization, but our knowledge of the subject is as yet extremely limited, notwithstanding the learned and patient re- searches of a number of able students, among whom are Thomas, Bowditch, Forstemann, Goodman, Seler, Brinton, Morley, and Toz- zer. In the Maya system of Central America, which is the most highly perfected, the symbols for days, months, years, and cycles are known, and dates inscribed in manuscripts and carved on monu- ments are in numerous cases made out with considerable facility. The earliest date yet deciphered is that engraved in glyphic char- acters on a small jade statuette obtained from southern Vera Cruz (fig. 20). 1 The date, as read by Morley, translated into our system,
1 Holmes, On a Nephrite Statuette from San Andres Tuxtla, Vera Cruz, Mexico.
51
52
BUREAU OF AMERICAN" ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
u\
is 100 B. C. The next recorded date found on the small sculpture called the Leyden stone is 160 years later, or 60 A. D.
The fact that 2,000 years ago the people of eastern Mexico had advanced so far toward the civilized state as to have Glyphic Chronology perfected a system of writing warrants the conclu- sion that the occupancy of the continent covers a much longer period, the length of which, however, may never be determined. Already so many of the dates have been read that the
s> periods of many of the greater
/ • :".:•> •<•;'-..• \ cities of the olden time are known
.//''••'••"..:;>. -a>x..C;v^N and the outlines of Maya history
h\ ••.;•-.. f.\\'% // O\ covering a period of 20 centuries
/ \ }.\ \\ jL.y /"'"\ are clearly made out. The correct-
/ \ \\ i\ II / \ ness of these readings is confirmed
/ \ \:-.jjr^j I \ by observed characteristics of the
\ art of the several culture centers
\ which indicate progressive develop- ...,\ ment in close accord with the glyphic chronology. The present status of the researches in this fascinating field may be learned by reference to the \vorks especially of Morley 1 and Spinden.2
In the present work, however, it is not the purposeful records of the tribes which must receive par- ticular attention, but rather the fortuitous records — works of the hands designed for various pur- poses, used and left by the wayside, and more especially those asso- ciated with geological formations. The data to be drawn upon in this field is vast in extent and of various grades of chronological value, ranging from the merely sug- gestive to the decisive and convincing. The cate- gory of data available to the Americanist in determining meas- urable periods of time as well as relative antiquity may be grouped as follows :
1. HISTORICAL (WRITTEN)
Data embodied in written history which, with the exception of the tales of the Norsemen and meager native glyphic records, are chiefly post-Columbian.
FIG. 20. Jade statuette from Vera Cruz, Mex- ico, with glyphic date corresponding to 100 B.C. (i)
1 Morley, An Introduction to tho Study of the Maya Hieroglyphs.
2 Spinden, A Study of Maya Art.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES — PART I 53
2. TRADITIONAL (MNEMONIC)
Data supplied by native tradition employed by chronologists neces- sarily with much caution.
3. BIOLOGICAL
(a) Data derived from the growth and decay of forests.
(b] Data derived from the distribution of plant species by human agency.
(<?) Data afforded by changes in living forms, as of shellfish, dur- ing the human period.
(d) Data based on the differentiations of the human groups and on the modification of animal species, as the llama and alpaca, through domestication.
4. CULTURAL
(a) Data derived from a consideration of the bulk of work ac- complished by the tribes, as in irrigation works, mines, and archi- tectural monuments.
(&) Data derived from a study of the culture contents of in- habited sites representing successive occupancies.
(<?) Data furnished by a consideration of the time required for the evolution of various branches of culture, as language, customs, arts.
(d) Data derived from the study of migrations and the time re- quired in completing the settlement of the several land areas of the globe.
5. GEOLOGICAL
(a) Data derived from the association of traces of man, physical and cultural, with geological formations, a chief resource of the chronologist, association being (1) with the systematic formations; (2) with river terraces, lake beds, eolian accumulations, and cave deposits, the relative, and in a measure, the actual age of which can be determined.
(&) Data furnished by changes in artifacts by weathering, sand- blast, etc.
6. PALEONTOLOGICAL
Data supplied by association of the remains of man and his works with fossil remains of animal and vegetal life, the geological place of which has been determined.
7. MlNERALOGlCAL
Data based on the rate of alteration which takes place in the material of antiquities and in osseous remains from decay, minerali- zation, and patination.
54 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
8. GEOGRAPHICAL
Data furnished by a study of the relations of land and water, his- toric and prehistoric, with respect to distribution of peoples and faunas.
9. ASTRONOMICAL
Data derived from changes in the relations of the earth and heavenly bodies which affect humanity at determinable periods.
The antiquity of man on the American Continent is a subject of deep interest to the student of the aborigines as well as to the his- torian of the human species as a whole, and the various problems which arise with respect to chronology are claiming an ever-grow- ing amount of scientific attention. The problems may be briefly suggested in this place, and the evidence so far presented for their solution may be reviewed.
During the first centuries of European occupancy of the continent belief in the derivation of the native tribes from Old World peoples in comparatively recent times was very general, and, indeed, the fallacy has not yet been entirely eradicated, as pointed out in a previous section. This view was based on the apparently solid foundation of the Usher chronology, and many works have been written in the attempt to determine the particular peoples from which the Ameri- can tribes sprang. The results of researches into the archeology of the Old World during the past century, however, old and New nave served to clear away the strict biblical inter- Distinct pretation of events and establish the fact of the great
antiquity of man in the world, and to develop a clear conception of the course of events from the close of the Tertiary epoch. Later on investigations in America were taken up, and evidence was found and readily accepted, which seemed to warrant the conclusion that the course of primitive history had been about the same on both continents; but a critical examination of the testi- mony has shown that this is probably not the case, and the necessity of treating the evidence furnished by the two continents quite separately is made apparent.
The aborigines are usually spoken of as a distinct race, but are more properly regarded as a subrace — an ancient offshoot of the yellow-brown race of Asia. Notwith- standing this, it is observed that the racial characters of the Americans are measurably distinctive and homogeneous, differing more or less from those of the better-known typical Asiatics, and some students have reached the conclusion that a long period was required to bring about these results. Again, those
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 55
who begin with the assumption that the arrivals in America were of a single or homogeneous stock marvel at the diversity in physical characters exhibited by the tribes, and inquire whether a long period was not required to produce the differentiations ; but until the char- acter of the incoming peoples with respect to homogeneity is deter- mined, it is practically unavailing to attempt an estimate of the chronologic significance of present similarities and differences. Although the immigrants may have reached America through a single portal they were not necessarily a homogeneous people racially. To-day the great region from which they are believed to have been derived contains tribes exhibiting marked physical differ- ences, diversity being the rule among primitive tribes there as else- where. Arrivals along the Bering shores, whether during glacial, interglacial, or postglacial time, probably included numerous tribes, or even linguistic stocks, presenting degrees of physical difference corresponding to those observed to-day among the tribes of Siberia and Mongolia, or even those of central Asia. Considering these possibilities and the extent of the American Continent over which the immigrants wandered, the similarities of group characters are perhaps quite as much to be remarked upon as the differences, and are at present equally valueless as indexes of chronology.
It does not appear that a study of the physical characters of the present tribes can serve any important purpose in considering prob- lems of American chronology, and the evidence so far supplied by the fossil remains is without crucial value in this direction, as shown elsewhere. The various human remains of apparently low type and assumed antiquity brought to light have been, on rigid examination, eliminated, one by one, so far as their physical characters are con- cerned, from the field of chronologic evidence.
The cultural conditions of aboriginal America have been studied
diligently with the view of obtaining further light
Diversity of Lan- on questions of age. The great diversity of cultures
gnages in Chronol- j1 . .., f „ „. a J ,. .
ogy and especially the wonderful differentiations in
language are brought forward as possible proofs of great antiquity. Usually the discussion begins with the assumption that the American pioneers were one people and from one region, speaking the same or allied languages, and that the differentiations took place entirely within the New World. Referring again to those parts of the Old World from which the American race is assumed to have been derived, we find peoples speaking not a single language but languages as diversified as those of corresponding areas in Amer- ica to-day, and realize that the intercontinental migrations prob- ably involved peoples speaking radically different tongues. It would thus appear that differentiations of language can not be regarded as of great value in solving the problems of antiquity. The theory of
56
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
multiple genesis of the languages introduced into America and of continued divergence is illustrated in figure 21. The same sugges- tion applies to other branches of culture and to race.
Considering all features of the research it seems probable that the immigrants to America were comparatively uniform in physical characters and in mental capacity, while the dialects were greatly diversified. Further and greatly accelerated differentiation must have resulted from the new and constantly changing conditions of
FIG. 21. Map suggesting multiple origins in Asia and differentiations in America.
environment to which the migrating peoples were necessarily sub- jected in passing from Arctic America toward the Equator, and thence again toward the Antarctic. Differentiating agencies corre- sponding to those affecting language must have affected religion, folklore, games of divination and chance, social customs, etc., of the migrating tribes, reducing to a minimum the importance of these branched of culture as aids in the study of chronology.
The diversified phenomena of material culture have been the sub- ject of extended studies by chronologists. The evo- nd Chr°" lution of the arts and industries of primitive peoples was naturally a process involving much time, but assuming that culture development in America began with an ad- vanced hunter-fisher stage, progress toward the higher stages, ob- served by the European colonists, may have been comparatively
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN" ANTIQUITIES PART I 57
rapid. Traces of geologically ancient man have not been found in America as in Europe, and investigations are proceeding with pain- ful slowness and much halting along the various lines of research, and false leads have been followed in many cases, prolonging the investigations and impeding progress. Students have sought in many ways to establish a chronology of the occupation of the conti- nent by man. The magnitude of the work accomplished in the building of mounds and other earthworks in the Mississippi Valley has been dwelt upon at length, and the time required for the growth and decay upon these wTorks of a succession of forests has been com- puted. The vast accumulations of midden deposits in both North and South America and the fact that the beds composing them seem in cases to indicate a succession of occupancies by tribes beginning in savagery and ending in well-advanced barbarism have been con- sidered by chronologists. Striking physiographic mutations, as changes of level in coast lines and alterations in river courses since man took possession, have been taken into account. Modifications of particular species of mollusks between the time of their first use on the shell-heap sites and the present time, and the development in one or more cases of new varieties, suggest hoary antiquity, but the highest estimate of elapsed times based on these evidences does not exceed a few thousand years. After carefully weighing the evidence collected by him in Alaska, Dall reached the conclusion that the earliest midden deposits on the Aleutian Islands are probably as much as 3,000 years old.1 It is possible that, considering the char- acter of the evidences, other students utilizing the same observations might have reached results differing from those of Dall.
We view with wonder the massive ruins left by the more cultured peoples of Middle and South America and speculate on the time required for the evolution of stone-built cities, as Tiahuanaco or Cuzco, Chichen or Copan, from villages of primitive type. Refer- ring, however, to Old World civilizations, we discover that many of the grandest culture developments matured quickly and were short-lived, being the product of some spasm of religious enthusiasm or some abnormal development of national power and enterprise. In India, for example, some of the most wonderful architectural creations of all time were built and abandoned within a few cen- turies. It is a well-ascertained fact that while the great architec- tural monuments of Java, Cambodia, and India were rising in their grandeur in the early centuries of the Christian era, the stone-built structures of America were also springing up in the forests of Yucatan and Central America. Centuries rather than millenniums have witnessed the accomplishment of the greatest material achieve-
1Dall, On Succession in the Shell-heaps of the Aleutian Islands.
58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. GO
ments of humanity. Shall we then be able to predicate great an- tiquity for the occupation of the American Continent on the testi- mony furnished by the achievements of human labor or even on the length of time required for the evolution of the American cultures from the neolithic elements assumed to have been introduced from Asia ?
As thus presented, the testimony of racial and cultural phenomena dissociated from geological criteria does not serve Chr°" to indicate clearly an antiquity for the aboriginal occupancy beyond a few thousand years. Through association with geological formations, the age of which can be determined with some degree of accuracy, both cultural and somatic remains combine to extend our vision with reasonable clear- ness well back toward the close of the last glacial occupation of middle North America, a period whose duration is estimated by some students at from eight to twenty thousand years. Some students of the subject are satisfied that authentic evidence of man's presence during the glacial period has been obtained, others find sufficient reasons for believing in man's existence in both North and South America far back in Tertiary times, while a single bold advocate of autochthonic antiquity has promulgated the view that man origi- nated in the western world rather than in the eastern and proceeds to identify his forbears among the American lower orders.
The geological evidence of antiquity, derived from the association of somatic and cultural remains with geological formations, that is to say, such formations, beds, layers, or strata as are due to natural as distinguished from artificial deposition, is extensive, and a full and exhaustive discussion of the subject necessarily involves the consideration of a vast body of testimony which, however, can not be more than briefly summarized in this place. The evidence will be presented, therefore, in outline merely, and the literature of origi- nal research will be cited somewhat fully for the benefit of those who may wish to pursue the subject further.
The various discoveries reported may be taken up somewhat in chronologic order, beginning with the earliest assigned date. First consideration thus falls to the testimony furnished ^ students of South American chronology, especially Ameghino and his associates, who have accumulated a large body of data purporting to indicate the presence of man in the pampas region of South America in remote times, the earliest traces brought forward being accumulations of cinders associated with strata assigned to the Eocene age and assumed to be due to human agency. The several periods intervening between the early Tertiary and historic times have been bridged by Ameghino by
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 59
various discoveries of osseous remains and artifacts and by hypo- thetical links, and the formidable body of data collected and pub- lished has carried conviction in numerous European and American centers of research. In 1909 the writer had the opportunity of exam- ining the various traces — cinders, fossil bones, and stone artifacts — in the Museo Xacional at Buenos Aires, and portions of the material were studied in greater detail in Santiago, Chile, where the evidence was presented by Ameghino before the section of Natural Sciences of the First Pan American Scientific Congress. The various phases of the subject presented so many features of scientific interest and importance that arrangements were made later to have Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, physical anthropologist, of the United States National Museum, and Dr. Bailey Willis, geologist, of the United States Geological Survey, visit Argentina with the view of becoming more intimately acquainted with the character of the field observations and the various relics of antiquity preserved in the Argentina mu- seums. The results of this investigation, which included a most exhaustive study of the large body of literature relating to the sub- ject, are summarized by Dr. Hrdlicka in the following paragraphs:
A conscientious, unbiased study of all the available facts has shown that the whole structure erected in support of the theory of geologically ancient man on that continent rests on very imperfect and incorrectly interpreted data and in many instances on false premises, and as a consequence of these weak- nesses must completely collapse when subjected to searching criticism.
The main defects of the testimony thought to establish the presence of various representatives of early man and his precursors in South America are: (1) Imperfect geologic determinations, especially with regard to the immediate conditions under which the finds were made; (2) imperfect con- sideration of the circumstances relating to the human remains, particularly as to possibilities of their artificial or accidental introduction into older ter- ranes and as to the value of their association from the standpoint of zoopaleon- tology; (3) the attributing of undue weight to the organic and inorganic alterations exhibited by the human bones; and (4) morphologic consideration of the human bones by those who were not expert anthropologists, who at times were misled in the important matter of placing and orienting the specimens and who accepted mere individual variations or features due to artificial de- formation as normal and specifically distinctive characters.
As to the antiquity of the various archeologic remains from Argentina attrib- uted to early man, all those to which particular importance has been attached have been found without tenable claim to great age, while others, mostly single objects, without exception fall into the category of the doubtful.
As to the many broken, striated, grooved, and perforated animal bones, the writers have not been convinced that these are in any case necessarily the work of geologically ancient man. In those instances in which the originals were examined, the markings observed were either clearly recognized as due to gnawing rodents or to other nonhuman agencies or as of doubtful origin.
The conclusions of the writers with regard to the evidence thus far fur- nished are that it fails to establish the claim that in South America there have been brought forth thus far tangible traces of either geologically ancient man himself or of any precursors of the human race.
60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
' This should not be taken as a categorical denial of the existence of early man in South America, however improbable such a presence may now appear ; but the position is maintained, and should be maintained, it seems, by all students, that the final acceptance of the evidence on this subject can not be justified until there shall have accumulated a mass of strictly scientific obser- vations requisite in kind and volume to establish a proposition of so great importance.1
The extensive literature of the subject is cited in full detail by Dr. Hrdlicka in his report. The results of the present writer's ex- amination of the large collections of stone artifacts brought back by Dr. Hrdlicka, which are embodied in the same volume, serve to show that the determinations of Ameghino, drawn from the study of corresponding material in his own collections, are properly sub- ject to critical revision. There appears to be no very cogent reason for assigning any of the cultural traces to sources other than tribes occupying the region in comparatively recent times.
Apart from the evidence obtained by Lund in Brazil and by the authorities above referred to in Argentina, considered with such acumen by Dr. Hrdlicka, South America has furnished no geological data deserving of extended mention.
The very serious risk of hasty conclusions, not only by amateurs
but on the part of scientific observers, respecting
Risk of Hasty Con- £n(js of numan remains in association with geologi-
clusions P
cal formations is well illustrated by a recent in- stance furnished by the second Peruvian expedition of Prof. Hiram Bingham. The osseous remains of a human being were found by the first expedition in the vicinity of Cuzco in what were believed to be deposits of Pleistocene age, and after careful exami- nation by the geologist of the expedition, the following announce- ment was made of the discovery of a fossil man of an antiquity which would have • given countenance to the questionable discoveries of Ameghino in Argentina:
From a detailed study of the geology of the upper Cuzco basin with special reference to glacial forms, it is concluded (1) that the beds belong to the Pleistocene series, (2) that the bones were deposited during a period of pro- nounced alluviation, and (3) that since the deposition of the bones at least 75 feet of gravel were deposited over them and later partly eroded, an erosion that is still in progress and to whose activity we owe the exposure.
It should be remembered that while compelled to refer the gravel beds of this locality to the Pleistocene series, I have yet to determine their place in that series. When this is done the antiquity of the vertebrate remains may be more safely approximated than now. A provisional estimate would hardly be less than 10,000 years; it could not exceed the maximum glaciation of the last glacial period, generally estimated at 75,000 years.2
1 Hrdlicka and others, Early Man in South America, pp. 385-386.
2 Bowman, in Bingham, Preliminary Report of the first Yale Peruvian Expedition, p. 25.
HOLMES]
ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I
61
Notwithstanding the adverse attitude at once assumed by skeptics, had not Professor Bingham made a second visit to the spot with the most commendable purpose of determining before it was too late the exact truth regarding the observations, the literature of American chronology would have been burdened with a most lamentable error, willingly accepted and perpetuated by the writers of books at home and abroad. The positive determination of the geologist would have carried conviction to many minds. The citation of these facts is not intended as in any sense derogatory to the explorers concerned. On the contrary, Professor Bingham is deserving of the highest com- mendation for his prompt action in renewing the search, thus estab-
California dence
FIG. 22. Section of Table Mountain showing mines penetrating to old river channels. The position of
the King pestle is shown.
lishing the truth in place of error. It is the probability that many such faulty observations are embodied undetected in archeological literature that deserves to be emphasized.
In North America during the middle decades of the nineteenth century a most imposing body of evidence relating to the Tertiary origin of man was collected by the State Geological Survey of California in the auriferous gravel region.1 Miners working the vast deposits of gold-bearing gravels, assigned in part to Tertiary times, reported the discovery of various artifacts in the diggings, not only in the deep gravels but entombed in these gravels beneath heavy sheets of lava of Tertiary age (fig. 22). This evidence has been the subject of most careful reexamination and revision, and, although it is imposing in bulk and was accepted as convincing by Professor Whitney, director of the survey, the conclusions drawn are questioned by those who realize the extreme danger of too ready acceptance of observations of geological phenomena by inexperienced observers, persons not prepared to understand the possible intrusion of recent artifacts from the surface into the deep diggings or to consider other possible risks of error. After visiting the principal sites of the alleged discoveries, the writer prepared an exhaustive review of the evidence.2 A brief
1 Whitney, Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California.
2 Holmes, Revision of the Evidence Relating to Auriferous Gravel Man in California.
62
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
[BULL. 60
summary of the arguments for and against the great antiquity of man in the gold belt, extracted from that review, is presented here for convenience of reference. The principal considerations arrayed in support of geological antiquity are as follows :
(1) During the three or four decades succeeding the discovery of gold in California the miners of the auriferous belt reported many finds of implements and human remains from the mines. The forma- tions most prominently involved are of Neocene age; that is to say, the middle and later portions of the Tertiary.
(2) Most of the objects came from surface mines, but some were seemingly derived from tunnels entering horizon- tally or obliquely and to great depths and distances beneath mountain summits capped with Tertiary lavas, a condition leading to a belief in their great age.
(3) The finds were very numerous and were reported by many persons, at various times, and from sites distributed over a vast area of country. They were made, with one exception, by inexpert observers — by miners in pursuit of their ordinary calling — but the statements made by the finders are reasonably lucid and show no indications of intentional exaggeration or attempted deception.
(4) The stories as recorded are uni- form and consistent in character, and
the objects preserved are, it is claimed, of a few simple types, such as might be expected of a very ancient and primitive people. The evidence, coming from seemingly unrelated sources, is described as remarkable for its coherency.
(5) The reported finding of an implement apparently in place in the late Tertiary strata of Table Mountain by Clarence King, geolo- gist and director of the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, is especially important and gives countenance to the reports of inexpert observers (fig. 23). It is the most important observation yet made by a geolo- gist bearing upon the problem of man's antiquity in America. Un- fortunately Mr. King failed to publish the discovery, which was made known many years later by Dr. G. F. Becker.1
Another unpublished discovery has also been made in these gravels which will be in so far more satisfactory to the members of this society that the
a 6
FIG. 23. a, Fragment of stone pestle found by Clarence King embedded in gravels underlying the Table Mountain lava cap. b, Pestle of the prevailing type among the California tribes.
1 Becker, Antiquities from under Tuolumne Table Mountain in California, p. 189.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES^ — PART I 63
discoverer is well known personally to most of them and by reputation to every geologist. In the spring of 1869 Mr. Clarence King visited the portion of the Table Mountain which lies a couple of miles southeast of Tuttletown, and therefore near Rawhide camp, to search for fossils in the auriferous gravels. At one point, close to the high bluff of basalt capping, a recent wash had swept away all talus and exposed the underlying compact, hard, auriferous gravel beds, which were beyond all question in place. In examining this ex- posure for fossils he observed a fractured end of what appeared to be a cylin- drical mass of stone. This mass he forced out of its place with considerable difficulty on account of the hardness of the gravel in which it was tightly wedged. It left behind a perfect cast of its shape in the matrix and proved to be a part of a polished stone implement, no doubt a pestle. It seems to be made of a fine-grained diabase. This implement was presented to the Smith- sonian Institution on January 20, 1870. It is shown in the accompanying cut (fig. 1), a photo-engraving from a drawing by Mr. W. H. Holmes. Mr. King is perfectly sure that this implement was in place, and that it formed an original part of the gravels in which he found it. It is difficult to imagine more satisfactory evidence than this of the occurrence of implements in the auriferous, preglacial, sub-basaltic gravels. . . . That human remains are really associated with an extinct fauna in these gravels seems to me thoroughly established.1
(6) The osseous remains recovered from the gravels are, in some cases, said to be fossilized, having lost nearly all their animal matter, and some are coated with firmly adhering gravels resembling those of the ancient deposits. These conditions give rise to the impression of great age.
(7) The flora and fauna with which the human remains and relics appear to be associated indicate climatic conditions and food supply favorable to the existence of the human species. It is a noteworthy fact that in many cases the intimate association of the human remains with those of extinct animal forms is noted.
(8) The evidence as presented by Whitney and others seems abundant and convincing, and many scientific men have accepted it as satisfactory proof of a Tertiary man in America. It is clearly the strongest body of evidence yet brought together tending to con- nect man with any geologic formation earlier than post-glacial.
On the other hand, numerous considerations are urged against great antiquity, as follows:
(1) It is held that the strength of testimony should be propor- tioned directly to the magnitude of the propositions to be supported and that this particular case requires proofs of a higher order than have as yet been presented.
(2) The existence of a Tertiary man, even of the lowest grade, has not yet been fully established in any country, and this Cali- fornia evidence, therefore, stands absolutely alone. It requires a human race older by at least one-half than Pithecanthropus erectus
1 Becker, op. cit., pp. 193-194, 198, 38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt i 6
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of Dubois, which may be regarded only as possibly an incipient form of human creature. Some of the finds reported indicate a Middle Tertiary people well advanced in the elements of culture; and cul- ture, especially in the earlier stages, is necessarily of exceedingly slow growth. The Pithecanthropus of California would have to be looked for somewhere in the early Tertiary if not in a preceding period. The burdens thus thrown on the auriferous gravel evidence are enormous.
(3) The assumption that a Tertiary man could have survived to the present time in California may well be held in abeyance. The physical and biological changes in the region have been profound
FIG. 24. The Calaveras skull, said to have been taken from Tertiary gravels at a depth of 130 feet.
and far-reaching. The western half of the continent has been twice or thrice remodeled since Middle Tertiary times, and every known species of plant and all species of the higher forms of animal life of that time are said to have been obliterated. Evidence based on random and inexpert observations is not sufficient to establish such a proposition.
(4) Could it be admitted that man did survive throughout the ages and continental transformations, it appears quite improbable that his physical characters and his culture should have remained un- changed. It seems equally unlikely that a modern race could have sprung up duplicating the man of a million years before in every essential particular.
(5) Examination of the human relics reported from the gravels fails to give support to the claim of antiquity. The fossilization, so called, of the osseous remains, upon which so much stress has been laid, may have taken place in comparatively recent times. The crania recovered are practically identical in character with those of the present tribes of California (fig. 24).
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 65
(1) Th? skull presents -no signs of having belonged to an inferior race. In its breadth it agrees with the other crania from California, except those of the Diggers, but surpasses them in the other particulars in which comparisons have been made. This is especially obvious in the greater prominence of the forehead and the capacity of its chamber. (2) In so far as it differs in dimen- sions from the other crania from California, it approaches the Esquimaux.1
(6) Objects of art from the auriferous gravels have been de- scribed as exceptionally primitive in character and in large measure peculiar to the gravels. When critically examined, however, they are found to belong to the polished-stone stage and to duplicate modern implements in every essential respect (figs. 25-27). They
a FIG. 25. Types of mortars and pestles said to have come from the auriferous gravels, (i)
are such as may have fallen in from Indian camp sites or been car- ried into caverns by the Indians themselves. They are made from varieties of stone belonging to formations ranging from the oldest to the youngest found in the district, and have been shaped by the ordinary processes employed by our aborigines. They evidently served purposes identical with the corresponding implements of our Indian tribes.
(7) None of these objects show evidence of unusual age, and none bear traces of the wear and tear that would come from transporta- tion in Tertiary torrents, nor can any reason be given why they should have been included in the beds of torrential rivers. These striking facts relative to the condition of the human and cultural remains confirm and enforce the impressions of recentness deduced from a study of the geological and biological history of the region.
(8) The case against antiquity is strengthened again by a study of the recent history of California. All, or nearly all, of the
1 Whitney, Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada, p. 273 ; HrdliCka, Skeletal Re- mains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America.
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phenomena relied upon to prove antiquity can readily be accounted for without assuming a Tertiary man. Indian tribes have occupied the region for many centuries. They buried their dead in pits, caves,
rock crevices, and deep ravines, where the remains were readily covered by accumulations of debris and of cal- careous matter de- posited by water. As soon as mining operations began, the region became noted as a place of skulls.
(9) Coupled with the above is the fact that no other coun- try in the world has been so extensively and profoundly dug over as this same auriferous gravel region. The miners worked out the ossuaries, and undermined the village sites, and it has been shown beyond cavil that large numbers of the native implements and utensils belonging to recent villages (figs. 28, 29)
FIG. 26. A ladle-like utensil from the auriferous gravels. (5)
FIG. 27. Boat-shaped stones from the auriferous gravels, (i)
were introduced into the mines and became intermingled with the gravels while the deep placer workings were actually in progress. Implements and utensils may also, in cases, have been introduced into the deep mines by helpers in the mining work.
(10) When these articles began to be observed by the miners, individuals interested in relics commenced making collections, but neither miners nor collectors understood the need of discrimination.
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The fact that the objects came from the mines was to them satis- factory evidence that they belonged originally in the gravels.
FIG. 23. Weathered gravel wall of a gold mine 200 feet in height, with ancient village site above.
(11) Again, it is possible that deception was often practiced. A mining camp is the natural home of practical joking, and the notion
FIG. 29. Section showing relations of ancient village site to caved-in gold mine.
A, Auriferous slates— bed rock; B, auriferous gravels, 250 feet thick; C, great excavation made in gravels by hydraulic mining; D, crumbled gravels, result of caving in; E, ancient village site; F, portion of village site destroyed by mine. The dark triangular figures in the talus show the distribution of artifacts resulting from slides into the mine.
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that finds of human relics in the gravels tended to excite heated dis- cussion would spread quickly from camp to camp until the whole region would be affected.
(12) The testimony for antiquity is greatly weakened by the facts (1) that the finds on which it depends were made almost wholly by inexpert observers, and (2) that all observations were recorded at second hand. Nothing short of abundant expert testi- mony will convince the critical mind that a Tertiary race of men using symmetrically shaped and beautiful implements, wearing necklaces of wampum and pol- ished beads of marble or travertine bored accurately with revolving drills, and having a religious system so highly developed that at least two forms of ceremonial stones well known among the Indian tribes were in use, could have occupied the American Continent long enough to develop this marked degree of culture with- out leaving some really distinctive traces of its exist- ence, something different from the ordinary belongings of our present aborigines.
Although, as thus summarized, the writer finds the weight of evidence rather against than for the great antiquity of man in California, he does not believe that the evidence recorded by Whitney and others should be Certain portions of the deep gravels appear to have yielded traces of human occupancy of the region during the forma- tion of these deposits and science can not afford to let the matter rest until their age is determined and the exact manner of inclusion is known ; meantime chronologists can be on their guard against too hasty acceptance of conclusions not absolutely warranted by the evidence.
In 1882 Professor McGee obtained an obsidian knife blade (fig. 30) from bedded deposits of white marl of supposed Pleistocene age in Walker Valley, Nevada. The specimen was seemingly in situ at the depth of 25 feet in the formation.
FIG. 30. Obsidian blade from sup- posed Pleistocene deposits, Nevada, (McGee.) (1)
disregarded.
The Nevada sidian
Ob-
It is of massive obsidian, or volcanic glass, and quite free from superficial incrustation or disintegration. In material, size, general form, mode of chip- ping, and freshness in appearance it is uudistinguishable from the arrow points in use to-day by the Piute Indians of the vicinity. It should be men- tioned that this fresh aspect is paralleled by that of the fossil bones found in the same stratum of white silt. These bones are perfectly white, not at all mineralized and, when found in fragments not readily identifiable, may easily be discriminated from long-weathered recent bones by their greater porosity and less weight.
The upper series of Lahontan deposits within which the obsidian was found are classed as Pliocene (Equns beds) by the vertebrate paleontologist and
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later Pleistocene by the physical geologist; but this discrepancy is of no fur- ther significance than an indication that the chronologies of paleontologist and geologist do not coincide. It suffices that the later episode of cold and wet in the Lahontan basin has been demonstrated by King, Gilbert, and Rus- sell to correspond with the second ice invasion of the glacial epoch.1
In a subsequent paragraph (pp. 306-307), speaking of the need of careful discrimination and great caution in treating of exceptional inclusions in unconsolidated geological formations, McGee makes the following most instructive and important statement :
It is a fair presumption that any unusual object found within, or appa- rently within, an unconsolidated deposit is an adventitious inclusion: Every cautious field geologist accustomed to the study of unconsoli- dated superficial de- posits quickly learns to question the verity of apparently original inclusions ; he may, it is true, exhaust the entire range of hy- pothesis at his com- mand without satis- fying himself that the inclusion is advent!- tious ; yet he is seldom satisfied that he has
exhausted the range of possible hypothesis as to the character of the inclusion, and hesitates long before accepting any unusual association as veritable. His case is not that of the invertebrate paleontologist at work in the Paleozoic rocks, to whom a single fossil may carry conviction ; for not only are the possi- bilities of adventitious inclusion indefinitely less in solid strata, but the mineral character of the fossil is commonly identical with that of its matrix and so affords inherent evidence of the verity of the association. Nowhere, indeed, in the entire range of the complex and sometimes obscure and elusive phe- nomena of geology is there more reason for withholding final judgment based upon unusual association than in the unconsolidated superficial deposits of the earth ; and it is only where there is collateral evidence that such testimony is acceptable to the cautious student. Now, the sediments of Lake Lahontan are generally, and in Walker River Canon almost wholly, unconsolidated and so the probabilities are against the verity of the association.
These considerations, although bespeaking much candor on the part of McGee, do not make it imperative that an observation so carefully made and recorded should be ignored by seekers after the truth. Made by a geologist of high standing, it is the second most important observation yet recorded bearing upon the problems of
31> Terra-cotta figurine reported to have come from late Tertiary or early Quaternary deposits, Idaho. (!)
An Obsidian Implement from Pleistocene Deposits in Nevada.
70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
the high geological antiquity of man in America, the Table Moun- tain find of King taking first rank.
Of similar import with respect to antiquity is the so-called Nampa image, a minute clay figurine supposed to represent a female, the body being quite well modeled, the head hardly more than a crude lump of clay, and the legs broken away, one above and the other below the knee (fig. 31). It is said to have been brought up by an artesian well sand-pump at Nampa, Idaho, in 1889, and derives its archeological interest from the fact that the deposits penetrated are geologically ancient. According to Emmons, 1 the formation in which the pump was operating is of late Tertiary or early Quater- nary age ; and the apparent improbability of the occurrence of a well- modeled human figure in deposits of such great antiquity has led to grave doubt as to its authenticity. It is interesting to note that the age of this object, supposing it to be authentic, corresponds with that of the incipient man whose bones were, in 1892, recovered by Duboise from the late Tertiary or early Quaternary formations of Java. Like the auriferous gravel finds of California, if taken at its face value the specimen establishes an antiquity for Neolithic culture in America so great that we hesitate to accept it without further con- firmation. While it may have been brought up as reported, there remains the possibility that it was not an original inclusion under the lava. It is not impossible that an object of this character could have descended from the surface through some crevice or water course penetrating the lava beds and have been carried through deposits of creeping quicksand aided by underground waters to the spot tapped by the drill.
It should be remarked, however, that forms of art closely analogous to this figure are far to seek, neither the Pacific slope on the west nor the Pueblo region on the south furnishing modeled images of the human figure of like character or of equal artistic merit. The nearest region in which work of corresponding culture grade occurs is in the middle Mississippi Valley, the period being recent. In seek- ing to explain the possible occurrence of this specimen several alternatives are suggested as follows: (1) That the figure is a rare and exceptional work of one of the tribes occupying the locality in recent times; (2) that it is of modern make by some distant aborigi- nal people of advanced culture; (3) that it is of modern make, by some designing person, introduced into the sand-pump output with intent to deceive; (4) that it is of early Quaternary age as indicated by its alleged occurrence, and the work of a people already well ad- vanced in the Neolithic stage of culture progress.
1 Emmons, in Wright, Climatic Condition of the Glacial Period : The Nampa Image, p. 432.
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Other averred traces of geologically ancient man are few in
number and in nearly all cases are lacking in au-
The Lansing Man thority as chronological evidence. Perhaps the most
important instance is that of the fossil man of
Lansing, Kans., about which there has been much discussion, certain
students assigning the remains to the lowan phase of the glacial
FIG. 32. Section showing the geological position of the Lansing skeleton, a, Tunnel ; &, location of find.
epoch and others advocating the view that it is probably postglacial and comparatively recent. The name is given to a partially dis- membered human skeleton found in 1902 under 20 feet of undis- turbed silt, TO feet in from the face of a Missouri River bluff (fig. 32). The bones lay partly under a large limestone slab imbedded in a mass of talus at the foot of a shale and limestone cliff against which the silt had been deposited. The silt deposit was probably due to an upbuilding partly by wash, partly by winds, partly by creep from the adjacent hills, partly by sediment from the Missouri. It appears that this de- posit, while possibly geologically ancient is not necessarily so and may be comparatively recent. The bones themselves do not give countenance to the theory of great antiquity.1 FIG. 33. Fn»tal view of the Lansing skull, According to Hrdlicka 2 the skull is
not perceptibly fossilized, and is practically identical in type with crania of the historic Indians of the general region (fig. 33). It has
1 The history of the discovery of the specimen is given by Wright in Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., January, 1890, February, 1891. Emmons's statement regarding the age of the formations involved is given in the same connection. Its authenticity is questioned by Powell in Pop. Sci. Monthly, July, 1893. See also Handbook of American Indians, art. Nam pa Imaye.
2 The Lansing Skeleton, p. 324.
72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. GO
been placed for safe keeping in the U. S. National Museum by its owner, Mr. M. C. Long, of Kansas City, Mo.
As the geologists who examined the site when a deep trench, cut under the direction of the writer, was open for in- Different interpre- spection, hold widely divergent opinions with respect to the age of the formation inclosing the remains, further investigation is necessary before the question of antiquity can be safely regarded as settled. The literature of the subject is extensive and can not be more than cited in this place. Of the geologists referred to, those favoring glacial antiquity are Upham,1 Winchell, Williston,2 and Erasmus Haworth, professor of geology, University of Kansas. Those favoring a comparatively recent date are Chamberlin,3 Holmes,4 E. D. Salisbury, professor of geology, University of Chicago; Samuel Calvin, State geologist of Iowa; and Gerard Fowke, who conducted the excavations on the site.
Professor Chamberlin concludes a lengthy and most critical review of the Lansing evidence and refers also to his equally noteworthy discussion of certain discoveries at Little Falls, Minn., as follows:
The discovery of human remains under 20 feet of debris near Lansing, Kans., has revived interest in the antiquity of man in [Chamberlin's View] America, and fortunately on more hopeful lines than here- tofore, since the mode of occurrence at Lansing is more definitely determinate than in most previous cases of the kind, and the geologic elements of the problem are more declared, though, as it happens, they belong to a much overlooked yet very common type. The recent studies of Brower and Winchell on the quartz chips at Little Falls have brought that case into more definite form.
There remain about the same differences of interpretation as heretofore, but these will pass away as the specific identification of glacio-fluvial, alluvial, and sub-aerial adjustment deposits become more familiar and precise, and as their interpretation is at once given greater latitude and made more strictly dependent on discriminative criteria.
In the judgment of the writer, neither of the above cases affords any sub- stantial ground for affirming the presence of man in America during the glacial period ; but they do afford a strong presumption that man in this coun- try has witnessed very notable progress in the deepening of the channels of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. In time there may be found means for estimating the rate at which these rivers are lowering their channels, but at present these are wanting, and there is no trustworthy method of estimating in years the time consumed in the deepening which has taken place since the human relics were buried.5
1 Upham, Man in the Ice Age at Lansing, Kansas.
2 Williston, A Fossil Man from Kansas.
3 Chamberlin, The Geologic Relations of the Human Relics of Lansing, Kansas, p. 715.
4 Holmes, Fossil Human Remains found near Lansing, Kansas.
5 Chamberlin, Editorial, p. 793.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 73
Professors Calvin and Salisbury agree with Professor Chamberlin in his very carefully drawn conclusions.
A large proportion of the observations relating to the geological
antiquity of man in America cluster about the clos-
significance of ing stages of the glacial period in the northern
Terms "Glacial" r •, -i n, -r, • T i-iji 1-1
and " Postglacial " United States. It is to be noted that the expressions " glacial," " postglacial," and " close of the glacial period " need to be employed with discrimination. Referring to the American Continent as a whole, the glacial period did not close until the main body of the general ice sheet disappeared beyond the arctic shores, and the postglacial period did not begin until the ice sheet had thus disappeared. Referring, however, to particular localities or regions, the glacial period ended when the ice abandoned that locality or region and the postglacial began. If the close of the glacial period in the Ohio or Delaware valleys, for example, should be placed at 20,000 years ago, it might in the region of the Great Lakes have been 10,000 years ago, and in the Mackenzie Valley and Hudson Bay region 5,000 years ago, and so on. In employing the expression "close of the glacial period," therefore, its particular geo- graphical application should be made clear.
If, as some hold, the continent was occupied at the period of the last great southward extension of the ice sheet, the inhabitants naturally dwelt in the valleys along the southern border, and traces of their presence should be found there. All the peoples occupying these valleys in post- glacial times down to the present would likewise leave traces of their presence — traces which would owe their characteristics to the kind of culture, the materials available for the arts, and the particular kind of occupation of the site as for hunting, fishing, war, manufac- ture of implements and utensils, dwelling or burial. The archeolo- gist, no matter when the occupancy began or whether it was broken or continuous, must encounter the very exacting task of arranging chronologically the data — the material evidences available on each site and in each district — and determining their true value. Chrono logical evidence is to be sought in successive, undisturbed deposits of glacial and postglacial ages, more especially in river and lake terraces and in caverns, but the record is not easily read and the true sequence may be determined only by expert and experienced observers. Various agencies have conspired to complicate and con- fuse the record and to render the reading difficult. The unconsoli- dated deposits of post-Tertiary time conform to no uniform order of succession, as do the systematic geological formations. Torrents, the exact period of which can not be determined, have plowed up the flood-plain deposits of the rivers and intermingled them, even reversing the order of original occurrence. The winds have torn
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down and built up, in most perplexing confusion, and the ever active forces of gravity have brought about extensive changes. Forests have been uprooted, breaking up the original order of deposition, arid man and beast have been continuously active in disturbing the superficial
deposits in many ways. Pitfalls await the unwary S^1^ C°ndi observer on evelT liand, and the interpretations of all
finds of artifacts attributed to unconsolidated de- posits are to be accepted with due reservation. A Japanese teapot from the alluvial deposits of a Virginia valley found at a depth of 25 feet may not prove, in the hands of even the most inexpert and credu- lous, an element of danger, since its origin and period are not liable
FIG. 34. Sand-buried Indian village site, on shore of Chesapeake Bay.
to misinterpretation, but a rudely shaped implement or a reject of manufacture of recent origin found at an equal depth may in incom- petent hands take its place in the literature of archeology as proof of great antiquity and an unknown race low in the culture scale. An Indian village site with its normal complement of relics on the shore of a Maryland bay, buried beneath a score of feet of wind- blown sand, may be readily and correctly interpreted by anyone having a little knowledge of such deposits and the contents of such sites (fig. 34). But objects of rudely shaped stone, the handiwork of the modern Indian, and such as occur on thousands of sites of random manufacture, buried at corresponding depths in like deposits and unaccompanied by other relics to assist in their proper interpre- tation, may find ready acceptance as testimony of remote time and elementary culture status. The normal contents of a lowland village site, including implements and utensils of several kinds, may be plowed up by torrential waters, redeposited lower down, and covered deeply
by other transported material without danger of lead- terpretation M *n£ ^° confusi°n on the part of expert observers, since
the various relics included may tell the story of their neolithic origin plainly. But the rudely shaped contents of quarries and workshops occurring in like situation and in like manner plowed up and redeposited may result in serious error, especially if encoun-
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 75
tered by incompetent enthusiasts searching for the old and the primi- tive and seeking evidence in support of favorite theories.
The pioneers in this perplexing field of investigation labored under numerous serious, though by them unrecognized, difficulties. They began with the assumption that the archeological conditions in America should repeat those of Europe; they began without actual knowledge of the cultural limitations and of the diversified handi- work of the recent aborigines of the region under investigation. They were unacquainted with the vital distinction to be drawn between real implements and the very abundant partially shaped refuse of implement making surrounding them on every hand; and because in Europe the ancient was rude, they adopted the idea that all in America that was rude was ancient. They were not versed in the geological formations and their numerous deceptive character- istics, and they sought in the Old World for explanations of phe- nomena which were much more readily explained by that which was near at hand.
It was a knowledge of these and other like misconceptions and misinterpretations which led the writer to assume a questioning attitude toward all the evidence, expert and inexpert, brought forward by the earlier students of the subject of antiquity in America, and especially of the testimony derived from accumulations left along the southern fringe of the ice sheets. When, at the instigation of Major Powell, the writer, then engaged in the geological survey of Colorado, and incidentally of the ancient cliff dwellings, took up the subject and began inquiries regarding evidences of the antiquity of man in America, the curator of prehistoric archeology in the U. S. National Museum was collecting rudely chipped stones by means of a widely distributed circular letter, largely mere shop rejects, which he classed and distributed as "paleolithic implements" at the rate of thousands per year; and a large collection of rude argillite objects, mostly of the shop-waster class, was exhibited in the Peabody Mu- seum, Cambridge, labeled " Paleolithic implements."
Such was the status of the research and such the attitude of mind
toward traces of antiquity in the early days that the
Early Credulity as California evidence of Tertiary man and the reputed
to Evidences of r> -\ t> >• j> • x i -j-i i /» j •
Antiquity tinds or artifacts associated with bones or extinct ani-
mals reported from several States were accepted without reservation, and even in recent years the astonishing an- nouncements of Ameghino respecting his hypothesis of the origin of the human race in Argentina were welcomed with open arms by the antiquity-hungry world.
Fortunately, to-day conservatism in accepting crude and imper- fectly verified observations prevails, and scientific methods are tak-
76 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 60
ing their place in archeology as they have done in the older branches of research. Such of the earlier conclusions as are sound will doubt- less in time be so fully supported by additional evidence as to force general recognition, while those which are wrong will die a linger- ing death, proportioned in duration directly to the amount of litera- ture with which they have been bolstered up and to the continued personal support of their authors.
In a few localities, especially in the Ohio and Delaware Valleys,
prolonged effort has been made to obtain evidence of Delaware Valley a conclusive nature with respect to antiquity. The
work at Trenton, N. J., has been more extensive than at any other station and the results have been presented to the scien- tific world in much detail.1 The river terraces at Trenton are com- posed largely of gravels accumulated at the period when the southern margin of the ice sheet was retreating to the northward in and beyond the Delaware Valley, some 10,000 or 20,000 years ago. At the points in and near Trenton where traces of man have been found, a section of these deposits shows generally a few feet of dark soil underlain by sand deposits of moderate thickness and beneath these accumula- tions of wind drift, while beneath again are the coarser gravels de- posited by the glacial and postglacial torrents. Finds of relics in the superficial deposits, the soil and sands, appear to have little posi- tive chronological value, since the age must always remain in a meas- ure uncertain; they may as a whole be passed over, therefore, as probably representing the occupation of the valley by the Indian tribes. It should be noted that the site of Trenton was, doubtless, a common resort of the Indians for a long period, for hunting, fish- ing, dwelling, and especially for the manufacture of implements from the argillite and other water-worn stones of the outcropping gravel deposits. Relics of various classes, and especially the refuse of manufacture, were thus scattered over the surface and buried to various depths in the superficial formations by sand drift and wash at all periods subsequent to the confinement of the river to its present channel. They were also subject to introduction into these deposits by excavations such as occur in all thickly populated districts — exca- vations, canals, foundations for buildings, cellars, graves, cisterns, wells, and the like. Objects of art assigned to the gravels proper and obtained by competent observers from depths not usually pene- trated by excavations are limited in number. A tubular fragment of bone regarded as part of a human femur and said to show traces of human handiwork was found at a depth of 21 feet beneath the surface. Other finds of relics, attributed to the gravels proper, have been adequately characterized by the present writer.2 Speaking of
1 Abbott, The Stone Age in New Jersey, p. 247. Volk, The Archaeology of the Dela- ware Valley.
2 Holmes, Are there Traces of Glacial Man in the Trenton Gravels? Primitive Man in the Delaware Valley.
HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 77
the Trenton gravels and relics ascribed to them, Professor McGee em- ploys the following language:
(1) The deposits in which they (the relics) were found are either late aqueo- glacial accumulations or later accumulations produced by winds or storms; while the depth at which most of the relics were found was so limited as to be within reach of surface disturbance. One of the relics, however, is of special significance because found at a considerable depth in apparently undisturbed deposits of later Glacial Age. This is a bone, apparently a human femur, which, although so far decomposed as to render the determination in some degree doubtful, appears to have been cut squarely across at one end, sharpened at the other end, and perforated about mid length. The whole appearance of the object suggests that it was artifically shaped for use as a handle for some sort of cutting implement, or for attachment to the shaft as a harpoon head or javelin point. The object is specially noteworthy as affording the most decisive bit of evidence of high human antiquity in America thus far recorded. (2) On the whole the question of the antiquity of man in America must be regarded as far from settlement. So far as occurrences of human relics in geologic deposits of known age are concerned, the evidence of high human antiquity seems less decisive now than a quarter century ago, chiefly by reason of the more critical weighing of details with increasing knowledge.1
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