IV. PEOBLEMS OF KACE AND CULTURE ORIGINS 



THE archeologist, absorbed in the study of the multitude of 

 monuments of past periods, full of interest in themselves, 

 does not lose sight of the fact that his efforts relate to these 

 monuments not as finalities of research but as means of accomplish- 

 ing a great end. He regards them as the architect regards the sepa- 

 rate stones with which the massive structure is to be built, or as the 

 historian or novelist regards the paragraphs and chapters by means 

 of which his creations are given to the world. He remembers that 

 the final aim of research is to cast stronger light into the dark places 

 of the history of man. In contributing to this end 

 Scope of Research he goes bevoud the realm of mere ancient things and 

 seeks to understand not only the racial groups whose 

 history he would especially reveal, but extends his view" to the race 

 as a whole and to the environments which, while limiting human 

 achievement, have molded man into what he is. 



The hypothesis of the unity — the biotic solidarity — of the human 

 race now meets wdth very general acceptance, but there 

 Lnity of the Race is still mucli Uncertainty in the minds of anthropolo- 

 gists regarding the time and place of origin and the 

 partings of the racial ways. In seeking to trace the American race 

 backward in its history, by wdiatsoever means, the archeologist encoun- 

 ters immediately the inquiry as to whether the beginnings are to be 

 sought in the Old or in the New World. The theory of a New World 

 origin which would make the Old World races offshoots of an 

 American stock is held by but few and is sustained by meager evi- 

 dence. To-day the consensus of opinion among students of the subject 

 favors the view that the Old World gave birth to the human kind, 

 and it folloAvs that the earliest traces of his existence must be sought 

 there, and that our researches must trend backward in that direction. 

 It is, indeed, incredible that the American race, rep- 

 Theory of Ameri- resented at the period of its greatest expansion by 



can Origins Un- , t, ^ r> i- -n- 



tenable hardly more than fifteen or twenty million people, 



and these of homogeneous physical type and imper- 

 fectly developed culture, not only should have peopled the Old World 

 but should have peopled it with three races, the white, the yellow, 

 and the black, highly differentiated in physical type and in culture 

 achievement, and comprising the bulk of the W'orld's population. 



Traces of human occupancy are found in the Old World associ- 

 ated with geological formations which are confidently assigned to 

 18 



