HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES— PART I 15 



achievements of the Aztec or the Incas at the period of discovery. 

 Among the conciliatory oti'erings of Montezuma sent to tlie approacli- 

 ing conqueror of Mexico Avere certain works of art unsurpassed on 

 the continent for technical perfection and esthetic refinement, and 

 the culmination of Mayan culture development, even if decadent at 

 the period of concjuest, could not have been remote. The remarkable 

 stucco embellishments of the city of Palenque, for example, exposed 

 in a peculiarly destructive climate, on the pillars, roofs, and roof 

 crests of the great buildings, are not entirely effaced to-day, and this 

 evidence of recentness can not be fully discredited by the chrono- 

 logical determinations of archeologists obtained through a study of 

 the inscriptions, since these so far as read may not represent the 

 later stages of the local development. 



It is not proposed in this connection to scan the literature of the 

 earlier centuries for scattered allusions to the anti(iuities and to the 

 pre-Columbian history of the aborigines, as this would be a work 

 of great magnitude, but to recite in the briefest manner the begin- 

 nings and progress, especially in the north, of the scientific investi- 

 gation of antiquities. 



Although passing attention was paid to the great earthworks of 

 the Mississippi Valley by numerous early settlers and 

 North Ymerica "^ explorers, no serious discussion of these antiquities 

 appeared until the first quarter of the nineteenth 

 century; the minor antiquities attracted even less attention. The 

 earliest organized investigation of these remains was that of the 

 American Anti(|uarian Society, incorporated in 1812. The first 

 l)ublication of this society was a paper by Caleb Atwater, which 

 appeared in the Transactions of the society in 1812. The first con- 

 tribution of particular note was that of Daniel Drake in 1815. 



Well-directed and sustained research in the mound region was 

 undertaken by Sciuier and Davis, 1845—17.^ The views of these 

 authors were in general correct according to more recent interpreta- 

 tions, except those regarding the problem of the relation of the 

 mound builders to the Indian tribes, the conclusion having been 

 reached and embodied in the final pages of their great work that 

 the mound builders were of an unidentified race of comparatively 

 high culture and undetermined antiquity. As a record of the monu- 

 ments and an interpretation of the lithic and other relics of art of 

 the region this work takes high rank,^ 



During the second half of the century researches extending over 

 a large part of the United States were rapidly initiated, and a vast 

 body of substantial information was brought together and pub- 



^ See Squier and Davis, Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. 

 2 For a notice of the numerous early contributors to the subject, see Squier and Davis, 

 op. cit. (preface) ; Haven, ArchiEoIogy of the United States. 



38657°— 19— Bull. 60, pt i 3 



