52 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



XIII, Fig. 4). It is a maul oblong in shape with a groove all around 

 in about the lower third of the stone, to which a short wooden or bone 

 perforated haft is tied by means of strong leashings. It is especially 

 used for splitting marrow-bones to extract the marrow, also for break- 

 ing all kinds of bones from which tallow is to be extracted, and for 

 crushing frozen meat, fish and blubber. The crushing is done over a 

 large flat round stone. 1 



Gerard Fowke 2 has devoted a chapter to the description of grooved 

 axes in North America which, according to him, seem to be of general 

 distribution throughout the United States, being, as far as can be 

 learned from various writers, much more numerous east of the Missis- 

 sippi River than west of it. But he is inclined to think that no deduc- 

 tions can be made concerning their relative abundance or scarcity, as 

 collectors have more diligently searched in the east than in the west. 



The grooved stone hammer does not survive in any other object 

 in modern China ; its unique occurrence in one specimen in the times of 

 antiquity seems to show that it takes a rather exceptional position. 

 The finds of this type in shell-mounds of Saghalin and Japan which 

 must be connected with the culture of the Ainu inhabiting this region, in 

 addition to the live tradition of the Chukchi, prove that it belongs to the 

 Palae-asiatic, or as I prefer to say, North-Pacific culture-area. And the 

 Chuckchi on Bering Strait present the natural stepping-stone linking 

 it with the American continent. Coincidences in material objects as 

 well as in ideas underlying myths and traditions finally rest on historical 

 causes. Nobody competent to judge will deny at present that there 

 have been mutual historical influences between Asia and America 

 revealed by numerous indications, steadily growing as our knowledge 

 advances. I am not an advocate of the theory that American cultures 

 in their whole range are derived from Asia; there was a continuous 

 undisturbed indigenous development going on for ages on this continent 

 with a keynote of striking originality which cannot be explained by 

 Asiatic ideas. On the other hand, human ideas have never been 

 stationary, but mobile and constantly on the path of migration. Ideas 

 have poured in from Asia into America, and from America into Asia, 

 in a process of mutual fertilization. The grooved stone axe may well 

 be claimed as an autochthonous product of North America; there it 

 occurs in greatest abundance and in a number of variations. It occurs 



1 A. E. v. Nordenskiold, Die Umsegelung Asiens und Europas, Vol. II, p. 1 1 1 

 (Leipzig, 1882) and W. Bogora,s, The Chukchee I, Material Culture, p. 187 

 (Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. VII, 1904), from whom our illustration is 

 borrowed. 



2 Stone Art in XHIth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 62-72. 

 Compare also Moorehead, The Stone Age of North America, Vol. I, pp. 222 et seq., 

 287 et seq. (Boston, 1910). 



