4(3 ANTHROPOLOGY IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE AND PACIFIC ISLANDS. 



Brinton believed that all of the original stock of the American abo- 

 rigines were descendants of palaeolithic Europeans who crossed the North 

 Atlantic by a land-bridge. 



Topinard assumed that American aljorigines are the blended product of 

 an autochthonous American branch of mankind and an Asian branch. 



Mason propounded a theory of the peopling of America from Indo- 

 INIalaysia. 



Dc Quatrcfagcs, in order to explain an alleged ''black" skin color on the 

 Pacific coast, introduced a INIclanesian clement into the aboriginal American. 



Several students, espcciallj' in Eiu'ope, have urged that the Pacific 

 peoples early came to America and that the highest culture of pre-Columbian 

 times was theirs. On the other hand, Ellis, an early authority on Oceania, 

 looked to America for the peopling of the Pacific. From our present knowl- 

 edge of the recency of Polynesian migration such a view is untenable as 

 regards the living population. But, as already suggested, it is possible that 

 the prehistoric people with the strange stone-culture of Easter Island may 

 have continued eastward to South America. The data accumulated in the 

 exhaustive study of the subordinate problems of the Pacific islands, already 

 presented, may very reasonably be expected to contain evidence of acceptable 

 value on the theory of southern Pacific migration to America. 



The weight of opinion among American experts to-day is in favor of the 

 theory that the great mass, though not necessarily all, of the early inhabi- 

 tants of America came from northeastern Asia by way of Bering Strait. 

 Favorable as this theory appears, it is not without its objections; they may 

 not be unsurmountable, yet need to be overcome. Among those objections 

 are questions of cultural development, of acclimatization, and perhaps of 

 physical differentiation. 



Some students believe that the Aleutian Islands, as a possible migration 

 route, merit further research. While in the light of our present knowledge 

 this route has its difficulties, there also appear certain advantages in such a 

 route over the more northerly Bering Strait route. The Aleutian route is 

 part of the horseshoe-shaped littoral stretching up along the Asiatic coast, 

 eastward across Bering Sea, and down the American coast. Geographically 

 and ethnically this littoral is part and parcel of the continental areas which 

 it fringes. This island route might well prove a fertile field for research on 

 the problem of the origin of the j^eoples of America, and also a fertile field 

 for research on the problem of the Pacific islands, under which head it might 

 logically have been presented. It is confidently expected that such a survey 

 would reveal osteological material and probably also artifacts that would 

 show clearly certain important facts of the race and culture which early 

 found its way to America, and about which we already have too much con- 

 jecture. Such insular investigations as just suggested should be only the 

 connecting link between the most thorough research on the bordering con- 

 tinental areas, especially the Asian area. 



