THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA." 



BY 



Thomas Wilson, 



Curator of the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology. 

 (With Plates xvn-xxi. ) 



During the thousands of years covered by the historic period the 

 world has remained in ignorance of the prehistoric races of man which 

 occupied the territory now belonging to our civilization. Although 

 prehistoric implements and monuments were widely disseminated, and 

 to be seen on every hand, yet they remained unrecognized. 



In the first decade of the nineteenth century the Danish savants, in 

 their study of the Runic characters belonging to the early history of their 

 country, discovered evidences of a human occupation earlier than any 

 previously known. Their investigations developed facts which were 

 accepted by the world at large, aud the prehistoric ages of man were 

 soon classified as the ages of stone, bronze, aud iron. The Stone Age 

 was afterwards subdivided into the palaeolithic or ancient and neolithic 

 or recent periods. In the United States the Iron Age belongs entirely 

 to history, and the Bronze Age, as such, had no existence. Our Amer- 

 ican Indian when found by the Europeau was in the neolithic stage. 



The question to be briefly considered beret is the existence of the 

 palaeolithic period of the Stone Age in the District of Columbia. 



It is not every chipped stone that belongs to the palaeolithic period. 

 The implements of this period are of a particular type and have indi- 

 viduality of form, so that the expert can distinguish them from imple- 

 ments of subsequent epochs or periods even when of similar material 

 and mode of manufacture. 



The questiou under discussion is one of great importance, for it in- 

 volves the existence of a people quite unknown, and their occupation 

 of our country at a period in antiquity hitherto unsuspected. I grant 

 that evidence of this period in Europe does not prove a like period in 

 America. The problem in each continent must be worked out from 



*Read before the Anthropological Society of Washington, May — , 1889. 

 tThis paper is an abstract of an article on " the Palaeolithic Period in the District 

 of Columbia," not yet published. 



Proceeding* National Museum, Vol. XII — No. 777, 



371 



