HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 75 



tered by incompetent enthusiasts searcliino; for the old and the primi- 

 tive and seeking evidence in support of favorite tlieories. 



The pioneers in this perplexing field of investigation hibored under 

 numerous serious, though by them unrecognized, difficulties. They 

 began 'with the assum[)tion that the archeological conditions in 

 America should repeat those of Europe; they began without actual 

 knowledge of the cultural limitations and of the diversified handi- 

 work of the recent aborigines of the region under investigation. 

 They were unacquainted with the vital distinction to be drawn 

 between real implements and the very abundant partially shaped 

 refuse of implement making surrounding them on every hand; and 

 because in Europe the ancient was rude, they adopted the idea that 

 all in America that was rude was ancient. They were not versed in 

 the geological formations and their numerous deceptive character- 

 istics, and they sought in the Old '\^'orld for explanations of phe- 

 nomena which were much more readily explained by that Avhich was 

 near at hand. 



It was a knowledge of these and other like misconceptions and 



misinterpretations which led the writer to assume a 



Koasons for Ques- ,,^i(.gtioning attitude toward all the evidence, expert 



turning Testimony . . 



and inexpert, brought forward by the earlier students 

 of the subject of anti(|uity in America, and especially of the 

 testimony derived from accunndations left along the southern 

 fringe of the ice sheets. When, at the instigation of Major l*owell, 

 the w^riter, then engaged in the geological survey of Colorado, and 

 incidentally of the ancient clilf dwellings, took up the subject and 

 began inciuiries regarding evidences of the antiquity of man in 

 America, the curator of prehistoric archeology in the U. S. National 

 ]\Iuseiun was collecting rudely chipped stones by means of a widely 

 distributed circular letter, largely mere shop rejects, which he 

 classed and distributed as "paleolithic implements" at the rate of 

 thousands per year; and a large collection of rude argillite objects, 

 mostly of the shop-waster class, was exhibited in the Peabody Mu- 

 seum, Cambridge, labeled " Paleolithic implements." 



Such was the status of the research and such the attitude of mind 

 toward traces of anti(}uity in the early days that the 

 Early Credulity as C'alifomia evidcuce of Tertiary man and the reputed 

 Antiquity fiuds of artifacts associated with bones of extinct ani- 



mals reported from several States were accepted 

 without reservation, and even in recent years the astonishing an- 

 nouncements of Ameghino respecting his hy]:)othesis of the origin of 

 the human race in Argentina Avere welcomed with open arms by the 

 antiquity-hungry world. 



Fortunately, to-day conservatism in accepting crude and imper- 

 fectly verified observations prevails, and scientific metliocls are tak- 



