HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 5 



cated. In each case the Avritten record covers but a limited portion 

 of the historical subject matter of the people of the area concerned, 

 as indicated in figure 2. In fact, the unwritten, the true prehistoric, 

 never ends, and the task of the archeologist has an unlimited future 

 as it has an inexhaustible past. Concrete examples may serve fur- 

 ther to illustrate the relation of history and the so-called prehistory — 

 that is, of the written and the nnwritten phases of the human record. 

 The history of Rome is recorded in a thousand volumes, yet there 

 is much more of Ivoman history within the period 

 written Rome °" ^^ written history which can be known to the mod- 

 ern world only through excavation and research, 

 and much more still which can not be known at all. The archeo- 

 logical phase of the history of Rome begins practically with the 

 present and extends backward over a succession of periods passing 

 indefinitely beyond the dawn of its written history toward the be- 

 ginning of man's career in the basin of the jNIediter- 

 written and Un- i-^nean. Even a modern city like Washington, now 



written Wastiing- .. , I'-i i ^ a 



ton little moi-e than a century old, has a record of events 



entombed beneath its pavements awaiting the pick 

 and spade of the archeologist of the future. Resting upon a sub- 

 stratum filled with relics of the aborigines, the subject in recent years 

 of extended and important research, is a layer of deposits pertaining 

 to the British colonial regime, and a stratum superposed upon this 

 inclosing traces of nearly a century and a half of the modern Repub- 

 lic. The bulk of the imwritten is by far greater than that of the 

 written. It would seem thus that the Capital City has its unwritten 

 record to which, how^ever, the archeologist-historian may not need to 

 apply, since the written record is exceptionally complete, unless, 

 indeed, a fate like that of ancient Rome should in the fullness of 

 time fall to her lot. 



That antiquity is not a necessai'y attribute of the subject matter 

 of archeologic science may be further illustrated. 

 Archeoiosy Not Xhc Contents of an ancient village site in Asia Minor, 

 uity for example, deserted before the beginning of the 



Christian era, contains ruined buildings and other 

 works, as well as minor relics of various kinds, on and beneath the 

 surface. All of these antiquities are properly within the purview of 

 the archeologist, who uses them in determining people, culture, period, 

 relations, and origins. The contents of a village site deserted by a 

 primitive tribe in Arizona a generation ago furnishes nearly identical 

 remains, all of w^hich are equally well within the purview of the stu- 

 dent of archeology, who may use them in determining the people, the 

 culture, the period, relations, and origins as in the other case. The 

 period does not in any way affect the status of the subject matter of 

 the science of archeoloffv. Events lost to memorv but vesterdav and 



