COMING OF MAN FROM ASIA — HRDLICKA 467 



proceeded with but short stops toward the " sun ", that is southward, 

 skirting the inhospitable coasts until they reached the Peninsula. 

 This, we now know, they found to be a regular sieve of passes with 

 easy portages, and once over these the newcomers were in the Alas- 

 kan Gulf, or in Cook Inlet, with the road to the east and the north- 

 west coast relatively easy. This was a much shorter and much less 

 difficult route than that up the Yukon would have been, and brought 

 the Asiatic man much sooner to regions that offered him induce- 

 ments for a more permanent habitation. The oldest habitations of 

 that nature were, therefore, in all probability in or along the old 

 Alaskan coast of Bering Sea and are not to be expected in other 

 parts of Alaska; and, as the old coasts are gone, such sites should 

 rather be looked for in the favorable spots of the western coasts of 

 southern British Columbia and in Oregon, Washington, and Cali- 

 fornia. The lower Frazier and Columbia River Basins and parts 

 of California would seem especially propitious. 



The next large questions on which our explorations have already 

 shed much light are those of what the Asiatic migrants brought 

 with them to America in the way of language, physique, and culture. 



As to both language and physique, it may safely be assumed that 

 if there were repeated comings of man, which view we have seen 

 to be the most justified one, then there surely came also differences 

 in language and physique, for no two ethnic or even tribal groups 

 are identical in these respects. Of the fact that different physical 

 types came in, we have already found sufficient evidence in the skele- 

 tal remains recovered from the Bering Sea and adjacent regions, as 

 well as elsewhere in America. 



As to languages, much can now be discerned which formerly was 

 obscure. The former general opinion was that the many varieties 

 of languages and dialects found in the two Americas were in gen- 

 eral of American development, and this argument had repeatedly 

 been used in support of a great antiquity of man on this continent. 

 This was, it is felt today, a superficial and unnatural assumption. 

 The probability, in view of the present light, is that a series of 

 languages and dialects, rather than one language, were brought 

 over from Asia, to differentiate here and diverge further under the 

 influences of time, isolation, and other factors. Unless it is accepted 

 that there was but a single coming of man to America, and that 

 by one homogeneous group, the notion of the advent of but a single 

 original language from Asia is impossible. 



The evidence of the skeletal remains, as well as that of the living, 

 has a direct bearing on the problem of the physical differences in the 

 newcomers. There are found in the two Americas at least five or 



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