SUMMARY OF PROGRESS IN ANTHROPOLOGY. 621 



extended all over the West Indian Islands, sliowin,a- that it was intro- 

 duced to this arehi[)elag(» from the southern continent. 



Even in our day the Mexicans excel in feather mosaics, some beauti- 

 ful exami)les of which are to be seen at the National IMuseum. But in 

 l)re-C'oluml)ian times more attention still was i»aid to snch matters. Of 

 this we have evidence in the beautiful examples lately brought to light. 

 Mrs. Nuttall, at the World's Congress of Arclneology, presented 

 colored sketches of a great number, and Dr. Seler resumed the subject. 

 {Zischr.f. Ethnol,^ Berlin, xxv, 44.) 



M. Adrien Mortillet, in a classification of weapons of offense, bases his 

 subdivisions upon the relation of the action to the hand, (1) held in the 

 hand, (2) working by means of something held in the hand, or (3) thrown 

 from the hand. Each oue of the classes of bruising, slashing, and 

 piercing weapons may again be thus subdivided. The Africans have 

 developed the slashing projectile in two forms, the bladed arrow and 

 the thrown knife or trumbash. M. Dybowski read a paper before the 

 Paris Anthropological Society upon the last-named weapon. {Bull. 

 Soc. (VAnthrop. de Paris, 4. s., iv, 07-100.) 



Mr. J. D. McGuire, in the American Anthropologist (Washington, VI, 

 307-320), attacks the division of the stone age into paleolithic and neo- 

 lithic from a new point of view. Unwittingly archseologists have got- 

 ten into the habit of calling chipped stone by the former and battered 

 and ground stone by the latter title. Mr. McGuire clearly shows that 

 battering stoKC is easier and therefore may be older than the chipping 

 art. He shows that among the best-known writers there is no unanim- 

 ity of opinion as to the status of the chipped-stone age, and avers that 

 the weight of authority is against the existence of any considerable 

 period of time in which man lived either in Europe or America, when 

 his only imi)lemenfcs were those that were chipped. 



The evidences of extensive prehistoric irrigation are found in Ari- 

 zona. Mr. F. Webb Hodge brings them together in the American 

 AnthropoUxjist (Washington, vi, 323-330). In the valleys of the Sal- 

 ado and the (xila, in southern Arizona, the ancient inhabitants engaged 

 in agriculture by artificial irrigation to a vast extent. The princijial 

 canals constructed and used by the ancient inhabitants of the Salado 

 Valley controlled the irrigation of at least 2o0,0U0 acres. The outlines 

 of at least 150 miles of ancient main irrigating ditches may be readily 

 traced, some of which meander southward from the river a distance of 

 14 miles. 



From nuiny hundreds of scattered sources Dr. Max Bartels has gath- 

 ered the jiterature of the world upon the history of medicine among 

 l)rimitive peoples. It is not generally noticed that sav^ages have a 

 l)ractice of medicine and surgery, notwithstanding their theory refers 

 every disease to spirit influences. Indeed, there are in most tribes, 

 besides the medicine man, wise women and men who give themselves 

 1o the cure of disease by medicine and wounds by treatment. The 



