HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART T 37 



is too meager and unsubstantial to be accepted as conclusive where 

 determinations of such great importance are involved. Notwith- 

 standing these conditions, speculation regarding the possible course 

 of human ali'airs in very early times may not be entirely profitless, 

 since in all investigations in very obscure fields the discussion of 

 reasonable hypotheses often assists in determining profitable lines 

 of research. However, the present writer prefers to confine his 

 speculations to a consideration of the possible course of distribution 

 under conditions of climate and geography corresponding somewhat 

 closely with those of postglacial and recent time. In support of 

 the reasonableness of this procedure it may be asked why adolescent 

 man more than the apes and monkeys should have taken to wander- 

 ing into distant and inhospitable regions. When we consider that 

 many of the larger species of quadrupeds have a widely distributed 

 and reliable food supply, that nature furnishes them with ample 

 protection from cold, and that they multiply rapidly, while the pre- 

 cursor of man in all probability was unfitted to withstand the cold 

 of Arctic climates or even temperate winters and subsisted on trop- 

 ical fruits rather than on animal food, replenished his numbers 

 slowly, and was not endowed with the fleetness of foot which makes 

 seasonal migrations possible, there seems to be sufficient reason for 

 holding that distribution to the remote, and espe- 

 Nojmai Habitat of (^j^^Hy ^^ the frigid, areas must have been much 

 slower than would be the distribution of most mam- 

 mals. He would have to become acclimated or to acquire sufficient 

 intelligence to enable him to master the adverse conditions of the 

 colder climates, and it seems that only highly developed, reasoning, 

 fire-using, implement-making, and warmly clothed man would be 

 equal to the task. It seems reasonable, therefore, to hold that the 

 Honilnida' probably did not begin to spread widely bej^ond their 

 original habitat until the human status had been fully reached, nor 

 far into inhospitable climes until a considerable degree of culture 

 had been achieved. 



It appears that under conditions of land relations and climate 

 which are thought to have prevailed well back toAvard the close 

 of the Tertiary period, America could hardly have been colonized 

 by a people not well skilled as hunters and fishers, acquainted with 

 fire, and supplied with suitable clothing. To-dav, deprived of fire 

 and clothing, men could not survive a j^ear north of 30° north lati- 

 tude, and it does not seem probable that in earlier stages of develop- 

 ment the genus could have any greater capacity for withstanding un- 

 accustomed environments. It is assumed that in order to reach the 

 New World fi'om the Old, cultureless man would require a climate 

 at the gateway which would compare with that of southern Call- 



