﻿HOLMES] AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HUMAN HISTORY 4'9 



With respect to race and racial characters American archeolog) 

 has as yet little to add to what may he learned from studies of the 

 living- peoples. So far as observed, the variations in type of fossil 

 forms do not extend decidedly beyond the range of variation ob 

 served among the living. It has been sought to establish a paleo- 

 American type in South America, but we are not certain that a 

 sufficient comparative stud) of the osseous remains of the present 

 peoples of the world has been made to warrant a satisfactory deter- 

 mination. Conservatism is especially desirable in any attempt to 

 establish new racial types or special orders of culture. 



Regarding race origin it may be said that there is still room for 

 speculation. Opinion seems, however, to be settling down to the 

 view that the American race, as it stands to-day, is not autochthonous 

 but is an offshoot of Asiatic peoples, originally more or less diverse 

 in character, arriving in America, mainly at least, by the Bering strait 

 route, not abruptly, but in the normal course of race distribution 

 from a natal habitat, the migration continuing for untold centuries. 

 Americanists have here a difficult, a perplexing, but a most fascin- 

 ating field of research. 



To-day, one of the most absorbing questions encountered by the 

 student of American archeology is that of the origin of the aboriginal 

 cultures. Some regard these cultures as autochthonous ; others have 

 looked for their source in many different parts of the world. 

 Although no final conclusion can yet be announced, we may as- 

 sume that, along with the incoming peoples, all or most of whom 

 must have been extremely primitive dwellers of the far north, there 

 came the simplest forms of the arts of hunting, fishing, shelter- 

 building, and the preparation of food; that from these elements, 

 under the influence of more southerly environment, there arose in 

 time diversified culture groups, such as are now under investigation 

 in various parts of the continent. We can not but admit, however, 

 the plausibility of the theory that seafaring wanderers from other 

 lands have now and then reached American shores, bringing with 

 them the germs of distinct cultures, and further, that the charac- 

 teristic art phenomena of certain centers of progress are such as to 

 give countenance to this idea. This is a most interesting and impor- 

 tant branch of archeological research, and one with which archeolo- 

 gists must at this stage particularly concern themselves. 



Archeologv furnishes a vast amount of interesting data regarding 

 the states of culture of the American race, but we note that in all 

 the researches so far conducted no traces of culture phenomena have 

 been found which extend below, on the one hand, or above, on the 

 other, the range observed among the living or historic tribes. There 



