﻿414 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



The position of aboriginal America in the field of culture history 

 and the area of that history which American archeology, as well as 

 American ethnology, can be expected to illumine is clearly indicated 

 in the accompanying diagram. 



In this diagram the whole field of human history is represented 

 by the five spaces which, beginning below, are : (i ) the stage of pre- 

 human development through and out of which the race arose; (2) 



A 



ml 



4 C.y.VuLgtj \\Vo»'/ 



1* 



3 Barl>o.roM.s \\''7;/ 



\V" 



2. £■ cwaqg- 



the savage stage in which humanity took definite shape; (3) the 

 barbarous stage in which powerful nations were founded, and sys- 

 tems of record were developed; (4) the civilized stage in which 

 higher culture was achieved, and (5) the enlightened stage, reached 

 as vet only by a limited number of nations. The idea of time is not 

 involved in this diagram. The stages of progress thus become a 

 scale on which the cultural achievements of any race or people in 

 its struggle upward may be laid down. It enables us to show just 

 what relative place is taken by each race or people and just how 

 much and at what points each can contribute to the history of man ; 

 for human history as written is composite, made up of the separate 

 histories of many peoples of all grades of development set together 

 like a mosaic. 



The fan-shaped figure, A, in the diagram, may be taken to express 

 the history of the race, that is, the whole of human progress from 

 the slender beginnings of the savage stage up to its greatest expan- 

 sion at the present day. The same figure may stand with equal pro- 

 priety for the career of a single people or nation that has reached 

 the highest limit of culture. In the diagram, the beginnings of 

 cultural development are represented at the base of the figure by a 

 few slender threads of activity. In savagery these threads multiply 

 slowly into a considerable number and, with ever accelerated rapidity, 

 divide and subdivide in barbarism and civilization, expanding with 



