﻿CONTRIBUTIONS OF AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY TO 

 HUMAN HISTORY 1 



By W. H. HOLMES 



Not wishing to weary the Congress with the reading of a lengthy 

 paper, I shall attempt to give the substance of what I would say in 

 brief outline, but in the beginning, as the representative of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, I have the honor to present to the Congress 

 a set of publications to be disposed of as it may deem expedient. 

 These volumes, about sixty in number, are selections from the 

 archeological publications of the Institution and two of its bureaus — 

 the National Museum and the Bureau of American Ethnology. 

 They deal almost exclusively with the problems of primitive Amer- 

 ican history and prehistory and mainly with the aboriginal history 

 of the extensive region now comprised within the United States. 

 Most of the volumes were published under Government auspices, 

 largely in the annual reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 of which Major J. W. Powell was the founder and the guiding 

 spirit. 



The Bureau's work extends over a period of twenty-five years, 

 but the parent institution began the publication of archeological 

 material almost from its foundation, the first number of its great 

 series of contributions to knowledge having been the " Monuments 

 of the Mississippi Valley," by Squier and Davis, a work known and 

 esteemed by Americanists everywhere. The works here presented 

 comprise only the more important papers relating to this branch 

 issued by the Institution and form but a fraction of its anthropo- 

 logical publications, a complete list of which includes several hun- 

 dred titles. I have the honor also to present a set of photographic 

 portraits of American Indians made during the past winter by the 

 photographers of the Bureau of American Ethnology and the 

 National Museum, representing members of the various delegations 

 of the natives visiting Washington on business growing out of their 

 relations with the Government. The portraits, about sixty in num- 

 ber, represent upwards of twenty tribes, front and profile views of 

 each individual being given. Besides the portraits, physical meas- 



1 Read before the Congress of Americanists. Stuttgart. Germany. August 21. 

 1004. 



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