556 CONTRIBUTIONS OF AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY TO HUMAN HISTORY. 



tory of the subject at periods where the records in the Old World are 

 most defective. 



Ceramics. — Of art in clay we may say much the same as of sculp- 

 ture. No people known to us has furnished such a vast body of 

 material for the study of this art from its beginnings up to the level 

 of glaze and the wheel as have the pre-Columbian Americans. The 

 clay took on a multitude of forms in which were embodied a wide 

 range of mythologic and esthetic concepts. 



The graphic arts. — To the history of writing aboriginal America 

 makes many contributions, and these, like the others referred to, 

 fall within that part of the history of progress wherein Old World 

 evidence is least satisfactory. In the Old World w^e trace back the 

 history of writing step by step to a point near the beginning of the 

 glyphic sj'stem. In the New World we pass back from the lower mar- 

 gin of the gh'phic to the \qv\ beginning of the graphic, thus all V)ut 

 completing the history of the evolution of the recording arts. 



With a knowledge of the present and prehistoric phases of picture 

 writing, it is easy to utilize and interpret the vast body of material 

 in this branch furnished by archeology ; but, rich as is this material, 

 insufficient light is throw^n upon the transition from picture writing 

 to phonic writing, the particidar stage of development in which 

 archeologists find one of the most fascinating fields of research. 'I he 

 great body of evidence brought before the conquering Europeans 

 was not appreciated by them, but rudely destroyed, and the remains, 

 graphic and sculptural, are now being gathered together and studied 

 in the most painstaking manner by our scholars, who hope almost 

 against hope to find a key to the problems of transition. Within 

 the cluster of graphic phenomena Avhich gave birth to writing, we 

 have evidence bearing upon other important branches. We here 

 get glimpses of the history of the calendar: we find traces of the 

 pictorial art, which had not yet reached the stage of light and shade, 

 persj^ective, and portraiture, and discover many germs of embellish- 

 ment, both mythologic and esthetic. 



Although many of the obscure problems arising in this American 

 field have been successfully Avorked out, many others are still await- 

 ing the attention of Americanists and will no doubt yield, little by 

 little, to their persistent efforts. 



The more important unsolved problems of aboriginal America are 

 those of race origins, of culture origins, and of chronology. These 

 problems do not relate so nuich to particular nations as to the history 

 of the race as a whole; not so much to peculiar or local cultures as to 

 the origin and evolution of the native activities; not so much to 

 tribal or national chronology as to correlations of race and culture 

 history with the geological time scale. 



With respect to race and racial characters American archeology 



