THE PEOPLING OF AMERICA 



Aborigines Represent the Yellow-brown Race of Asia and Polynesia — Arrived 

 on This Continent in Relatively Recent Period — Characteristics 



of the Stock.i 



Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, 

 Curator, Division of Physical Anthropology, National Museum, Washington, D. C. 



FOR the American anthropologist 

 no subject is of more interest 

 than that of the racial affinity 

 and the place or places of origin 

 of the American aborigines. Ever since 

 the discovery of the new continent and 

 its peoples these questions have occupied 

 many minds, but have not as yet been 

 brought to the point of final answer. 

 Numerous opinions were advanced, but 

 they were almost wholly the results of 

 speculation, fettered on one side by lack 

 of scientific research and on the other 

 by various traditions. 



When Columbus discovered the New 

 World he and his companions imagined, 

 as is well known, that they had reached 

 the Indies, and the people met were 

 naturally taken for natives of those 

 regions. Later, as the true nature of the 

 new land became better known, specula- 

 tion concerning the newly discovered 

 race took other directions, and some of 

 the notions developed proved disastrous 

 to the Indians. History tells us that 

 many of the early Spaniards, up to Las 

 Casas' time, reached the conclusion 

 that, as no mention was made concern- 

 ing the American people in Hebrew 

 traditions, they could not strictly be 

 regarded as men equivalent tO' those 

 named in biblical accounts, and this 



view, before being counteracted, led 

 directly or indirectly to much enslave- 

 ment and destruction of the native 

 Americans. 



Later, the origin of the Indians was 

 sought in other parts of the world, and 

 the seeming necessity of harmonizing 

 this origin with biblical knowledge led 

 to many curious opinions.' One of 

 these, held by Gomara, Lerius, and 

 Lescarbot, was to the effect that the 

 American aborigines were the descend- 

 ants of the Canaanites who were 

 expelled from their original abode by 

 Joshua; another, held especially by 

 Mcintosh,' that they were descended 

 from x\siatics who themselves originated 

 from Magog, the second son of Japhet; 

 but the most widespread theory, and 

 one, the remnant of which we meet to 

 this day, was that the American Indians 

 represented the so-called Lost Tribes of 

 Israel." 



MORE RATIONAL IDEAS. 



During the course of the nineteenth 

 century, with Levegue, Humboldt,^ 

 McCullogh,^ Morton,' and especially 

 Quatrefages,* we begin to encounter 

 more rational hypotheses concerning 

 the Indians, although by no means a 

 single opinion. Lord Kaimes, Morton, 



' Extract from the proceedings of the Eighteenth International Congress of Americanists. 

 The photographs of Asiatic types were furnished by Dr. HrdHcka, the photographs of American 

 types by the Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology. 



' See Garcia Clavigero and the older American historians. 



'Mcintosh, J.^ "Origin of the North American Indians," New York, 1843. 



^ Adair, J., "History^ of the North American Indians," London, 1775. 



» Humboldt, "Political Essav," I, p. 115; Humboldt and Bonpland, "Voyage, Vues des Cor- 

 dilleres," Paris, 1810. 



« AlcCuUogh. "Researches, Philosophical and Antiquarian, Concerning the Aboriginal History 

 of America," Baltimore, 1829. 



' Morton, S. G., "Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America," 2nd ed., pp. 

 35-36, Philadelphia, 1844. (Also his "Crania Americana "_and "Origin of the Human Species.") 



* Quatrefages, "Histoire generale des races humaines," Paris, 1887. 



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