﻿HOLMES J AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HUMAN HISTORY 4 1 / 



ings presenting thousands of square yards of embellished surface, 

 and marvel at the loft) false fronts and roof crests that were added 

 to afford space for the exercise of the native genius for decoration. 



These chapters in the evolution of the building arts are not taughl 

 with equal clearness and fullness in any other part of the world. 

 Besides those direct lessons which hear upon the history of the art 

 of architecture many side lights are thrown upon other branches of 

 primitive culture, as mural decoration, sculpture and furnishing, as 

 well as upon the organization of society, religious beliefs, and sys- 

 tems of glyphic writing. 



Sculpture. — Sculpture reached its highest development in Gre< 

 but the stages through which the art passed are but meagerh 

 recorded in extant art works of Hellas. The earlier steps are 

 represented by isolated bits in many places, hut the primitive phases 

 of the art are by no means so fully exhibited as they are in America. 

 We have there a vast body of material covering every stage of sti me 

 shaping from the very beginning up to full relief and realistic por 

 trayal of the human subject. No people known to us has within the 

 culture range of the Americans shown such versatility and power 

 with the hammer and chisel, none that has embodied in stone a 

 mythology so rich in imagery, including as it does forms of men, 

 beasts, monsters, and cosmic phenomena in greatest variety. The 

 archeologist has here spread out before him as in an open book, with 

 the work of the living peoples to guide him, the whole story of the 

 evolution of sculptural phenomena within the horizon of barbarism. 



Metallurgy. — The working of metals is among the most important 

 activities of civilized man and has been a chief agency in the devel- 

 opment of culture, as is especially manifest in the gigantic forward 

 steps of recent years. Although the general course of metallurgic 

 development and the mutual relation of its successive stages of prog- 

 ress are well made out, much remains to be learned, and in this direc- 

 tion America is able to make the most valuable contributions. We 

 learn from history something of the metal work of the American 

 aborigines. Tin, lead, and iron were little known, and the smelting 

 of ores was in its infancy, but gold, copper, and silver were exten- 

 sively used when the Spaniards arrived, and these metals were 

 forged, fused, cast, alloyed, plated, and otherwise handled with a 

 skill that astonished the conquerors. Archeology verifies the state- 

 ments of historians and adds much to our knowledge of the manipu- 

 lation of metals and of the products in the primitive stages of culture, 

 not only in regard to the Western continent but for the general his- 

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

 are most defective. 



