62 BUBEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 54 



changing climate, taking care to avoid the inference of progressive 

 change in one direction from temporary fluctuation which results 

 from a short cycle of radical climate. 



The combined investigations of archeologists and geologists fully 

 demonstrate that a marked though not great change in climate has 

 occurred since primitive man appeared on the earth, a fact so well 

 known that citation of authorities seems scarcely necessary, though 

 a few references may not be out of place. ^ 



In Europe man certainly existed during the period of the great 

 continental glaciers, though in America thus far no human remains 

 whose great antiquity is undisputed have been found.- 



In southwestern United States three Hues of geologic evidence 

 may be urged in support of the idea of recent desiccation: the flow 

 of streams, the former existence of lakes where none can now exist, 

 and the former glaciers of the higher mountains. 



It has been thought by some geologists that the great canyons 

 of the Southwest must have been cut by much larger volumes of 

 water than now flow through them. Newberry ^ says: 



I use the past participle in speaking of some of the streams whose erosive action 

 has been so marked, from the remarkable fact that many of these eroded valleys 

 are now dry; and in others the present streams are but miniature representatives of 

 those which formerly flowed in their channels. Everything indicates that the table- 

 lands were formerly much better watered than they now are. 



Cope* says: 



Professor Newberry (Ives' Report) is of the opinion that a diminution in the 

 amount of rain-fall over this region has taken place at no very remote period in the 

 past, and cites the death of forests of pine-trees which still stand as probably due 

 to increasing drought. It is, of course, evident that erosive agencies were once 

 much more active in this region than at present, as the numerous and vast canons 

 testify, but that any change sufficient to affect this process should have occurred 

 in the human period, seems highly improbable. In other words, the process of 

 cutting canons of such depth in rocks of such hardness is so slow that its early 

 stages, which were associated with a different distribution of surface-water supply, 

 must have far antedated the human period. 



Blake ^ says : 



A change of climatic conditions throughout the Southwest, and especially in the 

 semi-desert region of Arizona and New Mexico, is marked everywhere by the evidence 



1 Geikio, .Tames, The Great Ice Age and its Relation to the Antiquity of Man; Penclc, Albrecht, The 

 Antiquity of Man, in Science, n. s., xxix, 359-60, 1909; Obermaier, Hugues, Quaternary Human Remains 

 in Central Europe, Smithson. Rep. for 1906, 373-79, 1907 (reprinted from L'Anihropologie); Upham, 

 Warren, The Antiquity of the Races of Mankind, in Amer. Geoh, xxvra, 2.')0-54, 1901; Chamberlin, 

 Thomas C, and Salisbury, Rollin D., Geology, in, 50^-16, 1906. 



2 HrdU6ka, Ale§, Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America, Bull. 33, 

 But. Amer. Ethn., p. 98, 1907; Hrdlidka et al., Early Man in South America, Bull. 62, Bur. Amer. Ethn., 

 1912. 



3 Newberry, J. S., Geological Report, in Report upon the Colorado River oj the West, Explored in 1857 

 and 1S68 by Lieutenant Joseph C. Ives, pt. m, p. 47, 1861. 



<Cope, K. D., On the Remains of Population Observed On and Near the Eocene Plateau of North- 

 western New Mexico, in Ann. Rep. U. S. Geog. Expl. and Surv. W. of 100th Meridian for 1875, p. 172,1875. 



6 Blake, Wm. P., Geological Sketch of the Region of Tucson, Arizona, Pub. No. 99, Carnegie Inst., p. 

 66, Washington, 1908. 



