stone Aae in Indiana 



105 



THE PALEOLITHIC STONE AGE IN INDIANA. 



S. F. Balcom, Indianapolis. 



When we say "Paleolithic" in Archeology the mind is almost sure 

 to revert to the dim and mysterious past, — perhaps as far back as the 

 so-called pale of human existence, and we would expect that any ma- 

 terial facts connected with it would naturally be buried in an environ- 

 ment so indefinite and remote that one could scarcely grasp their mean- 

 ing. Si'Ch instances have been found under conditions pointing back to 

 very early times, even to the seemingly mythical Tertiary period, but in 



Fig. 1. Tertiary Sea of Nortli America. 



most cases the statistics pertaining to them have been so indefinite that 

 they have been questioned. 



"Races of Man," a very thorough and unprejudiced study of the 

 human race, states that finders of artificially chipped flints, said to have 

 become buried in the later Tertiary stratas, have few supporters at the 

 present day. This can be more fully realized when we consider that 

 the close of the Tertiary period saw the passing of the monster animals 

 of the previous age and the coming of others more suited to a com- 

 paratively temperate climate. Large portions of the earth's crust be- 

 came submerged and the ocean extended up the Mississippi Valley to 

 the Ohio River section. California and Alaska were under water; the 

 great Tertiary Sea spread over the western plains and up to the Arctic 

 Ocean (fig. 1) ; and the coral builders were yet at work upon Florida. 



"Proc. 38th Meeting-, 1922 (1923)." 



