THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY 479 



One or two aspects of the research work of the field anthropo- 

 logist must be mentioned. The studies in prehistoric archeology 

 have been given a lasting impulse by the discussions relating to the 

 evolution of mankind and of human culture. Two great problems 

 have occupied the attention of archeologists, the origin and 

 first appearance of the human race, and the historical sequence 

 of races and of types of culture. To the archeologist the deter- 

 mination of the chronological order is an important one. The de- 

 termination of the geological period in which man appeared, the 

 chronological relation of the earliest types of man to their later 

 successors, the sequence of types of culture as determined by the 

 artifacts of each period, and approximate determinations of the 

 absolute time to which these remains belong, are the fundamental 

 problems with which archeology is concerned. The results obtained 

 have the most immediate bearing upon the general question of 

 the evolution of culture, since the ideal aim of archeology prac- 

 tically coincides with this general problem, the solution of which 

 would be contained in a knowledge of the chronological develop- 

 ment of culture. Of course, in many cases the chronological ques- 

 tion cannot be answered, and then the archeological observations 

 simply rank with ethnological observations of primitive people. 



The field-work of ethnologists has been influenced in several 

 directions by the theoretical discussions of anthropologists. We 

 do not need to dwell on the fact that the scope of ethnological re- 

 search has become more extensive and exhaustive by taking into 

 consideration more thoroughly than before the whole range of 

 cultural phenomena. More interesting than this is the stimulus 

 that has been given to historic and psychological observation. On 

 the one hand, the theory of transmission has induced investigators 

 to trace the distribution and history of customs and beliefs with 

 care, so as to ascertain empirically whether they are spontaneous 

 creations, or whether they are borrowed and adapted. On the other 

 hand, the psychic conditions that accompany various types of culture 

 have received more careful attention. 



These detailed archeological and ethnological studies have 

 retroacted upon the theories of anthropology. The grand system 

 of the evolution of culture, that is valid for all humanity, is losing 

 much of its plausibility. In place of a simple line of evolution there 

 appears a multiplicity of converging and diverging lines which it 

 is difficult to bring under one system. Instead of uniformity, the 

 striking feature seems to be diversity. On the other hand, certain 

 general psychic facts seem to become discernible, which promise to 

 connect " folk-psychology " with individual psychology. The trend of 

 this development is familiar to us in the history of other sciences, 

 such as geology and biology. The brilliant theories in which the 



