CHIPPED STONE IMPLEMENTS AT THE COLUMBIAN HISTORI 

 CAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID, IN JANUARY, 1893. 



By HENRY C. MERCER, 



Curator of the M isenm of American and Prehistoric Archaeology at the University 



of Pennsylvania. 



That portion of the Exposicion Historico- Americana in Madrid which 

 aimed to illustrate the condition of aboriginal man in North and South 

 America at the time of the coming of Columbus offered a valuable oppor 

 tunity to the student. 



Easy walks from one room to another showed a series of objects col 

 lected without concerted purpose from many regions in both continents, 

 which series as it stretched in perspective from Bering Strait to Pata 

 gonia confronted us with important suggestions. 



Again we speculated upon the origin of the red-skinned people found 

 by the discoverer. Passing by the builder of mounds and the Cliff 

 Dweller, the Aztec and the Maya, the Inca and the Carib, Ave were 

 reminded of the River Drift man of Trenton, while the dispute waged 

 as to the evidence of his existence, and of the inhabitant of Table 

 Mountain, who has upset archaeological theories by polishing his stone 

 implements, it is said, in Tertiary times. 



In the series of human relics so gathered and arranged, ~ve met 

 disappointing gaps and realized too often the lack of that intelligent 

 gleaning which seizes every fragment of the lost tale; for which the 

 chip, the broken hammer, the neglected potsherd, and charcoal have 

 their full meaning and every stone tells its story. 



But making the most of what we saw and turning to the special ques 

 tion which confined our attention, we asked no more of the specimens 

 than what they might tell of that craft which so much concerned man 

 kind in the ages of its infancy, the chipping of stone tools. What might 

 these primitive implements unfold to us of the secrets of that ancient 

 apprenticeship which all humanity has served? What clues did they 

 offer to the losv story of our ancestry? 



How were these knives, awls, celts, and scrapers made? Whence 

 came the varied material? How was it discovered, quarried, and 

 transported? Shall the finished forms tell us of the culture of their 

 maker, and shall we discover in flaked stones evidence in America of 

 a time Avhen the art of Stone Age humanity was in its infancy, when 

 man, as in Europe, only chipped and had not learned to polish the 

 hardened material; when pot making, skin dressing, cord twisting, 



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