Indiana Archaeology 59 
PREHISTORIC INDIANA ARCHAEOLOGY. 
S.- F. BALcoM. 
First impressions are responsible many times for our persistent 
ideas of things. The colored maps of the school atlas, which divided 
the continent into sections based on political lines, stamped on our minds 
certain squares and irregular forms as constituting the divisions of 
what we are pleased to call the new world. Physical Geography cor- 
rected our ideas to quite an extent and we remember that there is an 
eastern and a western mountain chain in our portion of the continent, 
and that the latter extends through Mexico and Central America and 
on into South America. But how many are there who, having had 
opportunities of traveling over the country, take note of its formation 
and realize how one part after another has developed and is dependent 
on some other part, as for instance upon the Gulf of Mexico? 
In a paper read before the Indiana Academy of Science a few years 
ago, Mr. M. S. Markle called attention to the fact that the glacial drift 
reached as far south as the Ohio River, as evidenced by local flora in 
certain portions of Indiana and Ohio. And that plants common to an 
Arctic flora still remain in bogs and cool, shady ravines, and at times 
are surrounded by the southern flora that came in the wake of the 
retreating ice. A study of the primitive races in our northern continent 
shows traces of a shifting about, quite similar to these marches and 
countermarches of nature in building the land. And from remains 
which the Indians have left we are led to believe that the Indian stoic 
of the woods in Ohio knew as much of the geographical layout of the 
country,—that is, its mountain territory, its lake country, its prairie 
region, its converging valleys and their relationship to the great gulf 
at the south as do most of his civilized successors, excepting, of course, 
those who have made a special study of the face of nature in a geo- 
logical and geographical way. For on the Scioto River in Ohio are 
remains of a race which speak of an intertribal trade extending to the 
Atlantic on the east, along the Mississippi to the gulf on the south, 
and then west to the mountains of Mexico, if not to the canyon coun- 
try by way of the Red River or other water courses. 
Geology explains to us the formation of our continent, and how it 
has been formed on similar lines to that of the old world, yet it may be 
said to have an individuality of its own. Anthropology says the same of 
the primitive American races, for a development peculiar to themselves 
is indicated, in which certain characteristics of physical make-up and 
certain elements of the various languages, point to a common origin, 
and as not having been materially influenced by any old-world culture. 
It remains for Archaeology to trace the routes by which the branches 
of that prehistoric Indian race developed,—diverging in some instances, 
combining in others, and yet through it all leaving traces more or less 
distinct which point out the paths which they trod. 
