PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE NEW WORLD 
CONCLUSION 
In marked contrast to the Old World, nowhere in the 
Americas at the time of their discovery had civilization 
developed to any extent in the great river valleys. That 
it would eventually have done so is hardly to be doubted, 
although the absence of domestic animals would have been 
a great handicap. The interesting and highly organized 
tribe known as the Natchez, for example, found on the 
lower Mississippi, might in time have developed a civiliza- 
tion in some ways comparable to those of prehistoric 
Babylonia and Egypt. So, too, might the mound-building 
Indians of the Ohio and elsewhere. And many other 
tribes had advanced far beyond primitive savagery. All 
these experiments, however, were doomed to failure; none 
of the tribes had reached the point where they could offer 
effective resistance to the white man. 
Before closing this sketch of the higher aboriginal cul- 
tures of America, we must consider the question of pos- 
sible borrowings from the Old World. Certain students, 
mainly Europeans, have thought that they could detect 
traces thereof. Most American specialists, on the other 
hand, are convinced that what civilization we find is the 
result of entirely independent progress under somewhat 
similar natural conditions. 
Aside from all other considerations, it must be said that 
the supporters of the theory of Old World origins for the 
great American civilizations almost entirely ignore the 
historical problems involved. Of the latter, one of the 
most important is the development of sailing craft. The 
distance from southeastern Asia to the western coast of 
Central and South America is nearly half that around the 
whole world. A globe shows this even more strikingly than 
a map. For canoes driven by paddles alone, voyages of 
such enormous length, even allowing for stops at islands 
along the route, would be simply out of the question. 
Only by sailing craft, before the days of steam, could they 
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