36 ANTHROPOLOGY IN WESTERN HEMISPHERE AND PACIFIC ISLANDS. 



metal) artifacts; their sizes and forms were greatly limited. So a very impor- 

 tant step forward was taken when men learned how to make their needed 

 tools and weapons from malleable metals, such as copper and iron. This 

 forward step from fracturable to malleable metals has been discovered in 

 America. The importance of these two inventions can scarcely be overesti- 

 mated, since they lead directly to the apparent!}^ endless development of metal 

 crafts. Here one of the so-called "keys to history" has been discovered. 



Maize, one of the most valuable cereals in the world, has been traced in 

 its geographical origin in ancient times to the highlands of Mexico or Central 

 America. Cultivated "wild rice" has been studied, and its development 

 traced from the wild, unharvested fields. Other agricultural beginnings are 

 being discovered to-day, though in early agriculture, as in most other primi- 

 tive economic activities, the studies of beginnings are yet to be made. 



There are some forms of objects and some decorative designs which are 

 universally recognized as beautiful. The origin and development of some 

 of these aesthetic inventions have been traced from the crude savage of the 

 Americas and of the islands of the Pacific. 



Early religion has been traced in America to a simpler systematic stage 

 than that of universally recognized animism, which was previously considered 

 the earliest systematic form of religion. 



The studies of language in America now publishing are acknowledged 

 the best studies of primitive linguistics ever attempted. They will, beyond 

 doubt, be among the best studies in cultural anthropology in their time. In 

 America there have been published a study of pictography and a book on 

 the beginnings of writing. In the Western Hemisphere written language 

 may be studied in the pictograph, the ideograph, and the phonetograph or 

 the presentation of the conception of a sound by means of a picture. In 

 other words, the beginnings of written language have been found as highly 

 developed as word-sounds and perhaps even syllable-sounds, though not 

 sounds of letters as in a modern alphabet. 



These studies, taken from among the most important in cultural anthro- 

 pology, reveal the richness of the field. Most of the important work of the 

 cultural anthropologist belongs to the "larger problems" of anthropology 

 and can best be done after stores of data have been gathered for comparison 

 and final conclusions. As has been noted, much material concerning arti- 

 facts, activities, and institutions is now available. 



PREHISTORIC ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Generations now vanished have left interesting remains of their culture 

 over extensive areas of the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific islands. 

 The investigation of vanished peoples and cultures in the Pacific islands has 

 been slight and fragmentary, not having progressed far enough to solve any 

 of the problems. In the Western Hemisphere thousands of mounds of vari- 

 ous types have been examined, and the much-disputed question of the 



