TEADITION AND HEEEDITY 439 



may have been more continuous. From time to time waves of 

 migration swept westwards and a higher stage of culture over- 

 whelmed the lower. It may be that the culture systems on 

 reaching Europe followed lines of development of their own 

 which, owing to circumstances being relatively less favourable, 

 did not carry them so far as nearer their point of origin. There- 

 fore the next wave as a rule brought a higher degree of skill which 

 replaced the then existing European system. 



However this may be, what we do undoubtedly find is a 

 relatively slow rate of progress in the early part of the first 

 period. Progress became more rapid in the Upper Palaeohthic 

 and in the Neolithic. Finally at the opening of the third period 

 progress was vastly accelerated and has gone on with ever-increas- 

 ing rapidity subject to certain checks at various times and places. 

 This speeding up of the evolution of skill is the chief outstanding 

 characteristic of history since the opening of the first period, 

 and with it we may associate the facts that progress has not 

 been uniform as between different countries, and has been subject 

 to set-backs within countries especially within the third period. 

 Eecalling what was said in the last chapter as to the influence of 

 fertility and contact upon the growth of tradition, we may now 

 note that the main outline at least of these outstanding events is 

 apparently explicable as the result of the working of these factors. 

 We may begin with a consideration of the facts regarding 

 America. 



America was apparently peopled from Asia at an early date.^ 

 Putting aside the Eskimos, it is probable that the invaders 

 possessed a simple and fairly uniform type of culture and that 

 the cultural differences found at the time of the discovery as 

 between races in different parts of the continent were indigenous. 

 In other words America is a country in which a section of the 

 human race was early cut off from contact with the remainder — 

 such contact as occurred with the Norsemen and may have 

 occurred with the Pacific Islanders having been without impor- 

 tance. For many thousands of years cultural evolution had 

 proceeded independently in this isolated area. At the time of 

 the discovery it had in Mexico and Peru reached a fairly high level. 

 A form of writing had even been evolved, and in general the level 



1 See Am. Anth., vol. xiv, 1912, for a symposium of the views of American 

 authorities on this point. 



