ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA — NELSON 497 



we examine our jasper, chert, agate, hornstone, and other flintlike 

 specimens, we rarely find more than the faintest trace of weather- 

 ing — nothing, at any rate, to compare with the shiny ochreous condi- 

 tion of many of the flint coup-de-poing specimens from the Lower 

 Paleolithic, e. g., of western Europe. At the same time, it is neces- 

 sary to bear in mind that the' patina on European flint artifacts does 

 not always vary according to age. Thus, while the worked flints 

 removed from the dry rock-shelter type station at Le Moustier show 

 no appreciable traces of patination, the specimens from the open, 

 wet La Micoque and later stations are sometimes chemically altered 

 to a creamy white cheeselike substance, the like of which I have not 

 observed in America. Clearly, however necessary time may be as a 

 factor in patination, certain other conditions are far more important. 

 And even if the chert specimens from Kansas do yield six discernible 

 stages of surface alteration, it may be replied that available Paleo- 

 lithic specimens, also of chertlike material, from the Libyan desert 

 adjoining the Egyptian section of the Nile Valley, exhibit perfectly 

 astounding alterations, reaching by gradations to nearly an inch in 

 depth. In short, while our American patination studies leave much 

 to be desired, the warranted inference is in close agreement with the 

 preceding conclusions derived from the stratified refuse deposits; a 

 respectable antiquity is indicated, but a lapse of time comparable to 

 that demonstrable for the Old World is out of the question. 



NEGATIVE EVIDENCE 



An attempt has been made in the preceding section to set forth 

 the essential archeological features supplied by the New World and 

 to make the most of their possible antiquity. The results are dubious. 

 On the one hand, our culture deposits, with respect to geological 

 situations and zoological contents, furnish indications of jDerhaps 

 somewhat greater age than the strictly corresponding phenomena 

 of the Old World ; but, on the other, their implemental contents 

 appear to be of Neolithic complexion — unless we boldly redefine the 

 term Neolithic and under cover of a broader conception carry our 

 oldest prepottery stratum back toward the illusive Old World Solu- 

 trean stage. Whether or not this can be done is doubtful on account 

 of a number of negative indications, which can only be mentioned 

 in bare outline. 



Missing utilitarian features. — Of first importance, is the fact that 

 our American flint-chipping industries have failed to produce in 

 clearly specialized form a number of typical Paleolithic tools and 

 weapons, such as the plain and notched side-scrapers (racloirs), the 

 keel scraper, the Audi and Chatelperron points, the gravette blade, 

 the burin with its many modifications, the point with one basal 



