266 



DISCOVERY 



America. To appreciate fully, however, the relation 

 of this latest disco\-er\- to the views now generally 

 current and its meaning and place in the scheme of 

 our knowledge of the line of human development, some 

 familiarity with the American evidence as a whole is 

 essential. 



The reader need not be invited to consider here 

 theories of the origin of American culture — though an 

 important feature in certain aspects of the problem — 

 but to confine his attention to the evidence afforded by 

 those skeletal remains to which high antiquity has been 

 attributed. For the sake of clearness in the argument, 

 however, it is most convenient to deal at the outset 

 with the first of the three problems mentioned above. 



It is now generally agreed, firstly, that the Indian 

 in all the \-arieties in which he exists to-day on the 

 American continent (barring the more distantly related 

 Eskimo) exhibits certain common physical character- 

 istics such as (I) skin-colour, (2) character, distribution, 

 and growth of hair, (3) colour of the eye, and (4) the 

 fact that the eye is usually set slanting upwards in 

 the outward direction, in which he agrees to such a 

 degree with the peoples of Eastern Asia and Poh-nesia 

 as to suggest the conclusion that he derives from the 

 same stem ; secondly, that he represents an intrusion 

 which came from Eastern Asia and spread over the 

 continent from the north-west : and, thirdly, that this 

 intrusion did not take place in the form of a migration, 

 but in a series of waves after the stock had reached a 

 stage of development superior to that of the latest 

 Pleistocene man in Europe and had acquired certain 

 characteristics differentiating it as a type, in effect, as 

 clearly as those which mark the stock to-day. As 

 regards the date of this intrusion, some would place it 

 at the later Pleistocene at a time when Asia and America 

 were joined by a land bridge at a latitude extending 

 southwards to at least somewhere about what is now 

 Alaska : other authorities would make it as late as 

 early " recent " times, holding that it would be 

 possible to cross from the one continent to the other 

 by passing from one group of islands to another over 

 water and ice without the assistance of a complete 

 land bridge. The how and when are of less moment 

 for the present purpose. The important point is that 

 if it be accepted that the existing American Indian 

 type is derivative in comparati\'ely recent times from 

 Asia, the investigation of the date and place in human 

 evolution of the remains for which a high antiquity 

 is claimed, is no longer hampered by the necessity 

 of establishing a relation between the early and the 

 modern types. At the same time, as will be seen 

 later, resemblance to a modern type becomes a con- 

 clusive, and sometimes is the only, piece of evidence 

 afforded by a discovery of human remains which gives 

 a clue to their age. 



The question of date rests upon geological and palae- 

 ontological evidence. Before proceeding to examine 

 specific cases in some detail, it may be said that the 

 geological conditions, in the northern half of the 

 continent at any rate, conform on general lines to the 

 conditions prevalent in the Old World. The evidence 

 points to an Ice Age with four periods in which there 

 was an ad\ance of the ice-sheet and with milder periods 

 intervening. These correspond to the four cold 

 periods with milder interglacial periods now very 

 generally accepted as representing conditions during 

 the Ice Age in Europe. In both cases the problem is 

 to determine the relation of the evidence for man's 

 existence to these periods of glaciation and inter- 

 glaciation ; but, whereas in Europe the question 

 resolves itself into the interpretation of data which 

 are established with a reasonable amount of certainty, 

 in America, unfortunately, the data are either entirely 

 lacking, or are themselves in dispute. Lack of scientific 

 method in recording exact details of the circumstances 

 and conditions of discovery has deprived them of 

 much of their v-alue as evidence. In the earlier finds 

 precise geological data are rarely to be had, and, even 

 where such data are forthcoming, no observation was 

 made as to whether the stratum containing the skeletal 

 remains was undisturbed. In other words, we have 

 no means of determining whether the position of the 

 human remains discovered was due to deposition at 

 the same time as the stratum in which the\- were found 

 to be lying, or was the result of a later introduction by 

 human action (i.e. interment) or by natural forces 

 such as a flood or " wash out." 



Turning to the finds in detail, fourteen discoveries 

 of human remains in North America have been 

 recorded in which the circumstances appeared at first 

 sight to warrant a claim for a high antiquity. Oi 

 these, the more important are as follows : 



In 1844 a complete skeleton was found in New 

 Orleans, Louisiana, in the course of excavations for 

 gas-tanks at a depth of 16 feet, under the roots and 

 stumps of no fewer than four successive growths of 

 trees standing at different elevations. On this basis 

 it was calculated that " the human race existed in 

 the Delta [of the Mississippi] more than 57,000 years 

 ago." The bones, apparently, were not fossilised, 

 nor does the description of them suggest an essentially 

 primitive type ; but they have not been preserved. 



A claim for antiquity based upon the evidence of 

 the growth of trees was also made in the case of the 

 skeleton from Soda Creek, Colorado, which was found 

 in i860 at a depth of 20 feet under gravel which was 

 being mined for gold. There is little doubt that this 

 was an intentional burial. 



In 1847 a pelvic bone was found at the base of a 

 high cliff near Natchez, Mississippi, at least 2 feet 



