HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMEPJCAlSr ANTIQUITIES PART I 55 



who begin with the assumption that the arrivals in America w^ere of 

 a single or homogeneous stock marvel at the diversity in physical 

 characters exhibited by the tribes, and inquire whether a long period 

 was not required to produce the differentiations; but until the char- 

 acter of the incoming peoples with respect to homogeneity is deter- 

 mined, it is practically unavailing to attempt an estimate of the 

 chronologic significance of present similarities and differences. 

 Although the immigrants may have reached America through a 

 single jjortal they were not necessarily a homogeneous people 

 racially. To-day the great region from which they are believed to 

 have been derived contains tribes exhibiting marked physical differ- 

 ences, diversity being the rule among primitive tribes there as else- 

 where. Arrivals along the Bering shores, whether during glacial, 

 interglacial, or postglacial time, probably included numerous tribes, 

 or even linguistic stocks, presenting degrees of physical difference 

 corresponding to those observed to-day among the tribes of Siberia 

 and Mongolia, or even those of central Asia. Considering these 

 possibilities and the extent of the American Continent over which 

 the immigrants wandered, the similarities of group characters are 

 perhaps quite as much to be remarked upon as the differences, and 

 are at present equally valueless as indexes of chronology. 



It does not appear that a study of the physical characters of the 

 present tribes can serve any important purpose in considering prob- 

 lems of American chronology, and the evidence so far supplied by 

 the fossil remains is without crucial value in this direction, as shown 

 elsewhere. The various human remains of apparently low type and 

 assumed antiquity brought to light have been, on rigid examination, 

 eliminated, one by one, so far as their physical characters are con- 

 cerned, from the field of chronologic evidence. 



The cultural conditions of aboriginal America have been studied 



diligently with the view of obtaining further light 



Diversity of Lan- qj^ questious of age. The great diversity of cultures 



giinges ill Cbronol- . , ' , 



ogy and especially the wonderful differentiations in 



language are brought forward as possible proofs of 

 great antiquity. Usually the discussion begins with the assumption 

 that the American pioneers were one people and from one region, 

 speaking the same or allied languages, and that the differentiations 

 took place entirely within the New World. Referring sfgain to those 

 parts of the Old World from which the American race is assumed 

 to have been derived, we find peoples speaking not a single language 

 but languages as diversified as those of corresponding areas in Amer- 

 ica to-day, and realize that the intercontinental migrations prob- 

 ably involved peoples speaking radically different tongues. It would 

 thus appear that differentiations of language can not be regarded as 

 of great value in solving the problems of antiquity. The theory of 



