380 ETHNOLOGY. 



continent "? Dr. Wilson asserts that " the theory of an aboriginal unity 

 pervading our iudig<^nous American race from the Arctic circle to 

 Tierra del Fuego has leen shown to be baseless ;"* but how can it be 

 })roved that the Indians appearing most nearly allied to Asiatic races 

 are the oldest or original aborigines ? We doubt that all American 

 races are related, and if so different, as Dr. Wilson assumes, who can dem- 

 onstrate now which type or pattern was the central Irom which came the 

 others that climate, food, and surroundings generally, finally produced? 



Whatever the origin of the American aborigine, however, there can 

 be no question as to his condition from the date of his first appearance 

 on American soil to the time of the arrival of the European settler, a 

 period of immense duration, during which the puzzling red man jiassed 

 from the paleolithic to a neolithic condition ; and if we may correctly 

 estimate the advance in culture which a race has made, by the traces of 

 their arts that are still left to tell the story of their former presence, 

 then in ]S"ew Jersey the Indian was once a paleolithic man, and, from 

 whatever source he came, here advanced without supernatural revela- 

 tion, or the missionary efforts of a superior people, to a condition which. 

 is best known as " neolithic," or that stage of culture when stone was 

 utilized to the best advantage, every quality of the mineral being recog- 

 nized and the weapons fashioned accordingly. 



The theory of the gradual progress of mankind, which needs no 

 further discoveries to prove it true, is demonstrated, as in Europe, in 

 the condition and general position of the stone implements found in 

 Xew Jersey, although the older Stone age of the American race or races 

 does not date back as far into prehistoric ages as is jirobable in other 

 continents. It is true of New Jersey, as of Europe, that " all our recent 

 investigations * * * into the state of the arts in the earlier Stone 

 age, lead clearly to the opinion that at a period many thousands of years 

 anterior to historical times, man was in a state of great barbarism and 

 ignorance, exceeding that of the most savage tribes of modern times. 

 He was evidently ignorant of all metals, and of the arts of polishing 

 s-^one implements and of making i)ottery."t And finally, if the iiride of 

 man is to be considered in the demonstration of the truth in nature, is 

 it not more pleasant to believe that we are an improvement over, rather 

 than a degeneration from, our remote ancestry 5 and should we not be 

 ihankful to " Time, which antiquates antiquities, and hath an art to 

 make dustof all things," that he "hath yet spared theseminor monuments" 

 to us to prove the advance which we have made over a distinct people of 

 the globe, a fact which is now shown to be quite in accordance with 

 " the convictions of the great body of the learned," and with the facts of 

 history and of prehistoric times ? 



*L. c, p. 513. t Lyell, 1. c, vol. ii, p. 485. 



