FEWKBsJ INTRODUCTION. 51 



Since the author began the preparation of this report many other 

 archeologists have been led to enter the West Indian fiekl.- Several 

 collectors have been sent by Mr. Heye to the islands, and large col- 

 lections have been brought to his museum from the Bahamas, Cuba, 

 Santo Domingo, and Trinidad. In addition to work by the Heye 

 Museum, other institutions have begun work, especially in Porto 

 Eico, where important results are being brought to light by exca- 

 vations in ball courts, shell heaps, and caves. The New York 

 Academy of 'Science, in cooperation with the Insular government, 

 made excavations in ball courts and shell-heaps of Porto Rico, under 

 the supervision of Dr. F. Boas, in 1915. This wealth of new material 

 sheds some light on many doubtful questions which pioneer students 

 in Antillean archeology have been unable to answer, and will prob- 

 ably, when published, antiquate some of the theories brought forward 

 by the author in this article. For obvious reasons no adequate 

 reference can here be made to details of unpublislied material, but it 

 is very gratifying to the author that his prediction, made over a decade 

 ago, that the West Indian field will afford a rich harvest to arche- 

 ologists provided with ample means for intensive study on any one 

 of tlie chain of islands connecting South America with the south- 

 eastern part of the United States, has been confirmed. Of all the 

 islands superficially explored none still offer greater facilities for 

 study than Santo Domingo and Porto Rico, the central points of the 

 characteristic Antillean culture, where, no doubt, it originated. Much 

 work remains to be done in this field. 



The Antillean culture is sufficiently self-centered and distinctive 

 to be called unique, although the germ originally came from South 

 America. 



HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS 



Although the present memoir is concerned chieflj' with material 

 antedating written history, and the deductions drawn from it are 

 objective rather than subjective, due attention should be given to the 

 ethnology of the Arawak and Carib inhabiting in historic times the 

 islands where these specimens were found. There is a large body of 

 documentary evidence bearing on the use of some of these objects, 

 especially survivals seen by the early discoverers. It is not designed 

 to treat this material from the historical point of view, but a few 

 general statements at the outset maj' clearly define the relation of 

 the historic to the prehistoric. 



This memoir relates to prehistoric times, while the documentary 

 evidence deals with the historic epoch; the two methods of study 

 should go hand in hand. All the early historians point out that 



^Tho reader will flnil in Mr. T. A. Joyce's 'Central American and West Indian 

 Archseology " a valuable popular introduction to the subject here considered. 



