ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA — NELSON 493 



mate natural limits in the northeast when America was invaded by 

 the white man. 



As to the second point, viz, the general status and detailed char- 

 acteristics of our early hunting culture, the answer must be less precise 

 and categorical. The essential facts are not yet available for the 

 eastern half of North America, though tolerably well in hand for the 

 Ozark region and especially abundant for the Southwest and adjacent 

 parts of Mexico, where the associated traits are termed the " Basket 

 Maker culture." Basket Maker relics have been known for nearly 

 half a century, but their importance as antedating the prehistoric 

 Pueblo developments was scarcely appreciated until about 20 years 

 ago, when Kidder and Guernsey took up their investigation in earn- 

 est.^*^ The remarkable thing about this culture stratum, as now 

 known, is that although it may be 3,000 or 4,000 years old, and is at 

 least in part devoid of pottery and almost if not quite devoid of 

 maize, positively lacking in bows and arrows, in chipped stone arrow 

 points, grooved axes, etc., it is at the same time rich in basketry, in 

 textile work — especially ornate sandals; in wood work — including 

 spears and spear throwers; in ordinary bone work; in polished and 

 drilled stone work, as exemplified by beads, pipes, etc.; and, lastly, 

 in ordinary flaked and chipped stone work taking the form of lance 

 points and knives. To these accomplishments may be added the pos- 

 session of the domesticated dog and possibly the turkey. All in all, 

 such are the taste and skill displayed by these primarily hunting 

 folk that, however distant they may have lived in time, their achieve- 

 ments rest on long prior developments not yet discovered. More- 

 over, from the manner in which maize culture and ceramics gradually 

 developed among them and their successors, the Pueblos, it seems 

 probable that the Basket Makers were from the start subject to 

 influences from more advanced cultures in the south. Perhaps, there- 

 fore, Middle America is the place we should go to for the complete 

 story of cultural evolution in America. 



When we turn to the earliest archeological remains found in strati- 

 fied culture deposits in other parts of the United States, the records, 

 as stated, are much less complete; but, as far as they go, the inven- 

 tories obtained are in general agreement with that of the Basket- 

 Makers. Thus, the surviving implemental traits, for example, of 

 the California and Florida shell-heaps, as well as of the cave de- 

 posits in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, are 

 confined largely to works in stone, bone, and shell; the finished 

 products everywhere show more or less of quantitative changes, as 

 well as gradations of workmanship and specialization of form ; and, 



** Guernsey, S. J., Explorations in northeastern Arizona. Peabody Mus. Papers Amer. 

 Archseol. and Ethnol., vol. 12, pt. 1, p. 118, 1931. 



