ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH OUTSIDE AMERICA. 25 



are so overlain by later changes and developments that it would seem 

 hopeless ever to expect evidence from the study of existing European cultures. 

 If evidence of value is to be obtained in this matter, it will come, not from the 

 study of existing peoples, but from the buried records of the past. On this 

 side of America archaeology must have a greater interest than ethnology. 



If it is therefore hopeless to look to the east for an ethnological clue to 

 any factors which have influenced the early course of American culture, we 

 are driven to look to the west, and as a matter of fact it is in this direction 

 that the eyes of students of American culture have been turned. Influenced, 

 however, by the behef that the means of transport now found on the western 

 coast of America are an index of the past, attention has been directed exclu- 

 sively to the northwestern corner as the path by which any influence can 

 have reached the American continents from without, and any other route has 

 been put on one side as unworthy of serious consideration. If, however, the 

 art and means of navigation may atrophy or disappear, it becomes necessary 

 to take into account the possibihty that influences may have reached America 

 by the vast ocean which bounds its western shores. 



I have ventured to include this topic in my report because the consider- 

 ations I have brought forward seem to furnish the strongest grounds for an 

 investigation of the cultures which lie on the western side of the American 

 continents, viz., those of Polynesia, Melanesia, the Malay Archipelago, and 

 the eastern parts of Asia. It is not possible to predict from which of these 

 regions we are likely to obtain the most definite clues to any influence or 

 influences which may have reached the American continents from the west, 

 but aU these cultures have obvious elements in common, and this interrela- 

 tion of the different regions makes the study of any one fruitful in relation 

 to the rest. It is possible, however, to point out certain features of the 

 different regions which suggest roughly the order in which their investigation 

 may most profitably be undertaken. 



The culture which lies nearest to America is that of Polynesia and it is 

 the culture of this region which shows most clearly traces of affinity to that of 

 America. Further, it is in this region that the need for investigation is most 

 urgent. Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, have we a form of human cul- 

 ture so near extinction, so urgently demanding investigation if any addition 

 is to be made to our far too scanty knowledge. Even now in many parts of 

 Polynesia it will only be possible to study the wreckage of a culture which 

 probably stands in a closer relation than any other to that of the American 

 continents. 



Next in order of importance comes Melanesia. The reason for this 

 importance is that Melanesian culture bears the clearest evidence of the 

 influence of the migrant peoples who form the population of Polynesia. 

 Around Melanesia there are to be found Polynesian colonies w^hich have 

 proba])ly preserved, even more purel}' than any part of Polynesia i)roper, the 

 culture which the ancestors of the Polynesians brought with them from their 



