PREHISTOEIC CULTURAL AREAS IN THE WEST 



INDIES* 



When the West Indies were discovered by Europeans the inhabi- 

 tants of tliese islands were ignorant of the metals, iron and bronze, 

 which have played such an important part in elevating the condition 

 of prehistoric man in the Old World. Stone, clay, wood, bone, and 

 shell were employed by the natives for utensils and implements; 

 gold and copper for ceremonial purposes or for personal decoration. 

 The pre-Columbian aborigines of the West Indies, like those of the 

 rest of America, were jjractically in what Prof. Hoernes has aptly 

 called the infancy of our race culture, to which the name Stone Age 

 is commonly applied. 



This j)eriod of race history seems to have been universal ; it was 

 nowhere of brief duration. Successive steps in cultural advance- 

 ment were slow and in certain localities were retarded by unfavorable 

 environmental conditions. 



It has been estimated that the Stone Age in the Old World 

 lasted from the year 100000 to 5000 B. C.^ The American Indian 

 was practically in the Stone Age when he was discovered at the close 

 of the fifteenth century, and the inhabitants of a few of the Poly- 

 nesian Islands were still living in this epoch a little over a century 

 ago. There is every reason to suppose that the parentage of the 

 American Indian dates as far back as that of the Europe-Asian man, 

 provided both sprang from the same original source. It is known 

 from evidences drawn from differences in implements that during 

 the protracted Stone Age epoch man in Europe passed through 

 distinct phases, which have been designated the earliest, the old, and 

 the new stone epochs, before he entered that of metals. The Ameri- 

 can Indian had developed into the new or polished Stone Age when 

 he came to America, and had not progressed beyond it when America 

 was discovered by Columbus. 



Although the Stone Age still survived in America when it was 

 discovered, this epoch in the Old World had long before been super- 

 seded by one of metals, showing that the Age of Stone in the Old 

 and New Worlds does not correspond in time. When the New World 

 was discovered Europe had been in possession of metal implements 

 for several thousand years. The highest development of stone tech- 



* Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. V. No. 12, .Tune 10, 191.5. 

 " Practically another way of saying that the length of the Stone Age far exceeded the 

 age of metals. 



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