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ANNALS NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



and advanced in the arts of architecture and engineering. When the 

 advent of the Spaniards cut short this growth, it had attained a stage 

 that might easily have led to accelerated advances. 



We must now turn to the northern marginal area, which did not take 

 part to any considerable extent in the cultural work of the people of 

 middle America. Notwithstanding this, the area was not isolated but 

 received stimuli from another direction. The Old World lies near at 

 hand, and from here flowed the sources of new cultural achievements. 



As in the New World, the early growth of culture in Central America 

 had stimulated the neighboring tribes, and as inventions and ideas had 

 been carried to and fro, so it happened in the Old World. A constant 

 exchange of cultural achievements may be observed from the coasts of 

 the Mediterranean Sea to China and Japan. What wonder, then, if the 

 waves of this movement struck the shores of our world where it is nearest 

 Asia, not with a strong impact but as the last ripples of the spreading 

 circle. The Siberians and Americans were closely affiliated before the 

 introduction of domesticated animals gave a new character to Siberian 

 life; and at this time the Asiatic house, bow, armor and Asiatic tales 

 found their way to America and spread over the whole northwestern 

 portion of the North American continent, reaching even the tribes of 

 our Western prairies. 



The Southern marginal area, the extreme south of South America 

 and parts of Brazil present a different set of conditions — an isolation 

 that is probably equalled in no other part of the world excepting, per- 

 haps, Tasmania. Unfortunately, our knowledge of these regions is so 

 imperfect that almost nothing can be said in regard to the type of cul- 

 ture of the tribes inhabiting this area. May 1 point out that here lies 

 the most important problem for the investigation of the earliest ethnic 

 history of the American Continent, because here alone may we hope to 

 recover remains of the earliest types of American mental development? 

 The investigation of this problem, of the ethnology of the Fuegians and 

 Ghes tribes according to modern thorough methods, may therefore ur- 

 gently be recommended to the Carnegie Institution, that furthers so 

 many lines of research, or to other institutions that are devoted to the 

 advancement of knowledge. 



'o v 



Here halts my fancy, which has taken me in rapid flight over thou- 

 sands of years, over endless changes of types and peoples. I do not ven- 

 ture to speculate about the question of a cultural relation between the 

 islands of Polynesia and South America; for the suggestions are too 

 slight, and the improbability of relations seems at present too great. 



