208 FOSSIL MEN. 



American peoples depends, as we have already seen, 

 on their reproducing to us the conditions of these 

 ancient men, and showing us that under the eyes of 

 Europeans the same people, with the same usages, 

 have been living in America, and are still living in 

 some remote parts up to our own time. The American 

 tribes thus bring near to us the living picture of the 

 almost forgotten men of the pre-historic time of the 

 Old World, while their rapid disappearance in the 

 presence of European colonisation shows how those 

 rude peoples of the Old World may also have perished. 

 But may they not aid also in settling some of the still 

 disputed questions respecting the antiquity of pre- 

 historic man in Europe ? This will be best ascertained 

 by summing up the evidence for that antiquity, and, as 

 we proceed, noting the points where American facts 

 may aid us. 



We have already, in the introductory chapter, in- 

 quired as to the import and validity of the ages of 

 Iron, Bronze, and Stone, now so strenuously insisted 

 on by European archseologists. At the time of the 

 discovery of America it was the age of Bronze and 

 Gold in Peru, of Copper in Mexico and the valley of 

 the Mississippi, and of Stone and Bone everywhere 

 else. Possibly even then the Greenlanders may have 

 had some weapons of native iron, and some few iron 

 and steel implements may have found their way to the 

 west coast by means of wrecked Japanese junks. In 

 less than four centuries the Iron age had established 

 itself in all except a few remote localities. 



