Ill 



EVIDENCES OF VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS 



As suitable as the New York region is and in former times was 

 for human occupancy, there is little evidence that there were any 

 human beings here in very remote times. So far, no one has 

 produced satisfactory proofs of man's presence during the glacial 

 periods. We have never known of any implements from this State 

 that may be known as paleoliths, as these things are known in Europe 

 and elsewhere. The rock shelters and caves examined up to this 

 time, while yielding some rude flints, do not indicate any remarkable 

 antiquity. 



We do not wish to imply that man was not here or to lay stress 

 upon a mere theory of his recent appearance. What we do wish to 

 state is that up to this time competent observers have not seen in 

 the ancient gravel deposits or in the glacial till any articles that look 

 as if indubitably made or used by human hands. It may be that some 

 time such evidences will be found and that man in this region will 

 be shown to have lived here during and immediately after the last 

 glacial period. We have no sympathy with a dogmatic theory that 

 would seek to limit in an arbitrary way the time of man's first 

 appearance upon the earth. Man certainly was on earth fifty thou- 

 sand years ago ; he may have an antiquity of five hundred thousand 

 or more than a million years, if the evidence presented by the 

 geologists is conclusive. Our contention is that man left no traces 

 here by which we may know of his occupation in the immediate 

 postglacial times. Where upon this continent he was, we do not 

 know. It is apparently true that certain Asiatic tribes in the periods 

 following the last glaciation found their way over Bering strait and 

 dividing and subdividing became the parent stems that later 

 developed into the great linguistic families of the two continents. 

 The first groups we should expect would push southward along the 

 Pacific coast with comparative rapidity. The slower pressure would 

 be from west to east. 



Indeed all the rest of North America north of Mexico had a popu- 

 lation in aboriginal times scarcely equal to that of the Pacific coast 

 states. The densest Indian population followed the west coast south 

 through the desert lands of New Mexico and Arizona into Central 

 Mexico, Yucatan and Central America. 



[29] 



