16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 60 



lished by individuals, societies, and institntions, and by the Govern- 

 ment. During this period a gradual change took place in the views 

 of students regarding the mound builders, and at the close of the 

 century there was practical unanimity in the view^ that the builders 

 of the great earthworks were the ancestors of the Indian tribes 

 found in possession of the general region, and that the culture rep- 

 resented is not of a grade especially higher than that of the tribes 

 first encountered by the whites in the lower Mississippi Valle}^ and 

 in some of the CJulf States to the east. 



Little was recorded of the important antiquities of the arid 

 region — the ancient pueblos and cliff dwellings — until after the 

 middle of the nineteenth century, when the Government began the 

 Avork of sur\eying transcontinental railway lines and mapping the 

 " Great West."" 



The literature of the Spanish, Portuguese, and other pioneers in 



the conquest and settlement of Middle and South America abounds 



in references to the material culture, modern and 



Researches in Mid- ancient, cf the vast region occupied, but no organized 



die and South ' ,, ^. , ^ ,. 



America researches were luidertaken anterior to the expedi- 



tions of Squier in Peru and Stephens in Yucatan and 

 Central America, and not until recently have the Latin-American 

 countries entered on the study of the native peoples and culture in 

 I'eal earnest. Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rica, Brazil, Peru, and 

 Chile have each conducted explorations and published results of 

 great value, and foi-eign students, research organizations, and even 

 foreign Governments have taken an active part in the work. 

 One of the most important problems of the American race, the 

 last to be taken up in a serious manner, is that of 

 Chronology the antiquity of the occupancy of the continent, 



especially that phase of it coming within the realm 

 of geology, and the researches in this field have not as yet advanced 

 lo a stage where definite and generally accepted conclusions have 

 been reached. This topic will be presented at some length in the sec- 

 tion on chronology. The literature of geological chronology is al- 

 ready extensive but consists in so large a measure of the writings 

 of inexperienced observers and bookmakers that it is perplexing 

 rather than enlightening. 



The most serious hindrance to progress in correctly interpreting 

 the evidence of antiquity arose from the assumption on the part of 

 a number of students that the course of human history in America 

 must be pai-allel with that of the Old World : that occupation of the 

 continent was indefinitely remote and that the course of cultural 

 development must correspond in every essential respect with that of 

 prehistoric Europe; that traces must exist, and should be found, of 

 the initial period corresponding to the European paleolithic and the 



