56 BUREAU OF AJMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 182 



a true indication of a basic chert industry, it must have been a vigorous 

 and thriving one, indicating a wider spread of population over a 

 longer period of time than was heretofore suspected or anticipated. 

 The significance of this is to argue for greater attention to be brought 

 to bear upon such finds, but, unfortunately in Virginia, there is 

 neither bone nor carbon 14 material upon which to make correlations 

 and comparisons. 



Various Virginia forms appear to display certain typological analo- 

 gies to some of the Old World types, but these cannot be judged to be 

 synchronous because there is a putative age difference. This conjec- 

 ture is based on a series of geological and cultural chronologies. How- 

 ever, whenever absolute chronologies, based upon controlled condi- 

 tions, are once established, it is surmised that the presumed older Old 

 World artifacts will probably be found to be much yomiger and the 

 New World specimens to be much older, with a meeting and possible 

 overlap of the two chronologies. It is inconceivable to the writer 

 that Early Man in the Old World took a couple of hundred thou- 

 sand years to develop and overspread Eurasia and Africa and only 

 twenty or more thousand years to completely people the New World, 

 and to set up various complicated linguistic families and ideologies 

 with varying degrees of cultural advancement, in such a short time 

 span. 



In making a comparison of implements from both the Old and New 

 Worlds, it will be noted that man's requirements were somewhat the 

 same on both sides of the Atlantic and he depended to a great extent 

 on large animals for subsistence. Living conditions and climate must 

 have been pretty much alike on both continents. 



While such investigations in the New "World are still in their infancy, it can 

 already be said with assurance that no one ancient American culture in its 

 entirety resembles any known European culture in its entirety. In addition to 

 this failure to agree, there are some reasons for thinking that, in Late Glacial 

 times, the respective economies of the Old and New World were so different 

 from one another that the cultures which these diverse conditions called forth 

 wei-e also fundamentally unlike. That this may have been true is suggested 

 by the greater number of edible plants, roots, tubers, seeds, and nuts which were 

 native to America. With such a wide range of vegetal foods easily available, 

 it is possible, if not probable, that, in favorable areas, some ancient Americans 

 depended more upon food-gathering and less on hunting than their Old World 

 contemporaries. This, in turn, makes it easier to understand how, in the . . . 

 United States, we are discovering horizons considerably earlier than was formerly 

 thought to be po.ssible. [Gladwin, 1937, p. 134.] 



In view of the many olisorvable differences between the Paleolithic cultures of 

 the Old and New Worlds, and also between the hiunan types, which were asso- 

 ciated with these cultures, I venture to suggest that American archeologists 

 shall not rely too heavily upon Old World criteria or classifications in studying 

 our ancient cultures or physical types, and these factors be evaluated on their 

 own merits, in the light of our own environment. [Gladwin, 1937, pp. 137-138.] 



The uncertainty that withholds an outright aflBrmative answer to this question 



