54 ISLAND CULTURE ABEA OF AMERICA [eth. ANN. 34 



nique, other things being equal, woiikl naturally be looked for where it 

 had been practiced the longest time, and it is to be expected that the 

 prehistoric stone objects found in America would be superior to the 

 European, known to have been made before the discovery of bronze 

 and iron. 



Individual specimens of stone implements from the Old and New 

 Worlds are so similar in form and technique that it is very difficult 

 to determine which continent can show the better examples, but 

 comparing the majority of implements from the Stone Age in Amer- 

 ica with those made before the discovery of bronze and iron, now ex- 

 hibited in Europe, it has been found that the former are, as a rule, 

 superior to the latter. In Stone Age architecture we find a like 

 superiority. The buildings constructed in the American Stone Age 

 excel those of the same epoch in Europe, as will a])pear when we 

 compare the stately temples of Peru, Yucatan, or Central America 

 with the megalithic monuments and other buildings ascribed to the 

 latest Stone Age of EuroiJe." 



Character and decoration of pottery is also a fair indication of 

 cultural conditions reached in the Stone Age in different regions 

 of the globe. The ceramics of this epoch in America reached a 

 higher development than those of the polished Stone Age of the 

 Old World, as may be readily seen by comparisons of the beautiful 

 prehistoric American Stone Age potteiy with that of man before 

 the use of metals in the Old World. ^ 



It thus appears that, if we base cultural advancement on pottery 

 or house building, America had reached a higher stage of develop- 

 ment than Europe, even though man in the former was ignorant 

 of the metals, bronze and iron. The implication is that the human 

 race, found in America in 1500 A. D., had lived in a Stone Age longer 

 than man in Europe, where metals had been introduced fully 6.000 

 years before Columbus. 



The implements found in the West Indies are among the highest 

 developed examples of this Stone Age. Many of them are the most 

 perfect of their kind and rank with the polished stones of Polynesia, 

 Africa, and Asia, In architecture the branch of the American 

 race inhabiting the West Indies in prehistoric times had not made 

 great progress, although the cognate ceramic art was well developed. 



Wliile there is little in prehistoric ^Vmerica to show a serial succes- 

 sion of stone implements based on method of manufacture, as indi- 



"This Judgment is based on the probable form and character of the ancient houses 

 of the Stone Age in Europe, from " house urns " or burial urns shaped like houses, or 

 from the reconstructions made of walls as indicated by post holes and floors. These 

 buildings of the European Stone Age were certainl.v inferior to those of the same epoch in 

 America. 



'These examples show the weakness of rel.ving solely on stone, bronze, and iron in 

 classitlcation, and the futility of basing the degree of human culture on any one form of 

 artifacts. 



