438 FEWKES: PREHISTORIC CULTURAL CENTERS 



Character and decoration of pottery is also a fair indication of 

 cultural conditions reached in the Stone Age in different regions 

 of the globe. The ceramics of this epoch in America reached a 

 higher development than those of the polished Stone Age of the 

 Old World, as may be readily seen by comparisons of the beauti- 

 ful prehistoric American Stone Age pottery and that of man 

 before the use of metals in the Old World. ^ 



It thus appears that, if we base cultural advancement on 

 pottery or house building, America had reached a higher stage 

 of development than Europe, even though man in the former was 

 ignorant of the metals, bronze and iron. The implication is 

 that the human race, found in America in 1500 A.D., had lived 

 in a Stone Age longei^than man in Europe, where metals had been 

 introduced fully 6000 years before Columbus. 



The implements found in the West Indies are among the 

 highest developed examples of this Stone Age. Many of them 

 are the most perfect of their kind and rank with the polished 

 stones of Polynesia, of Africa and Asia. In architecture, the 

 branch of the American race inhabiting the West Indies in pre- 

 historic times had not made great progress, although the cognate 

 ceramic art was well developed. 



While there is httle in prehistoric America to show a serial 

 succession of stone implements based on method of manufacture, 

 as indicated by chipping, polishing, or other superficial char- 

 acters, the variations in their forms are great. They indicate 

 geographical rather than historical cultural distribution. Cer- 

 tain characteristic forms of stone artifacts are confined to 

 certain areas, but these characteristics are not of such a kind 

 as to make it difficult for us to readily arrange them in a sequence. 

 The first step to take in explanation of different types of stone 

 implements is naturally to define the areas that are typical.^ 



■^ These examples show the weakness of relying solely on stone, bronze and 

 iron in classification and the futility of basing the degree of human culture on 

 any one form of artifacts. 



^ The culture historian is concerned with the distribution of archaeological 

 objects in time and space or in history and geography. It is for the geographer 

 to interpret geography in relation to history and of the historian to translate 

 history by the interpretation of the geographer. 



