FEWKEsJ CULTURE AEEAS IN THE WEST INDIES 55 



cated by chipping, polisliing, or other superficial characters, the 

 variations in their forms are great. They indicate geographical 

 rather than historical cultural distribution. Certain characteristic 

 forms of stone artifacts are confined to certain areas, but these char- 

 acteristics are not of such a kind as to make it difficult for us to 

 readily arrange them in sequence. The first step to take in explana- 

 tion of different types of stone implements is naturally to define the 

 areas that are typical.' 



While the different known types of stone objects found in the 

 West Indies may be considered geographically rather than his- 

 torically, this manner of assembling specimens in large collections 

 lirings out many facts which will make it possible later to determine 

 a definite chronology/, and to associate types of implements with local 

 conditions, thus affording an instructive study of the interrelations 

 of environment and human culture. 



We can believe that certain of the stone implements found on 

 these islands are old, but it can not be proved that the oldest of them 

 extend back to the earliest polished stone epoch. Stone implements 

 made by chipping, or those having unpolished surfaces, are rare in 

 the West Indies ; they have not been reported in sufficient numbers to 

 enable us to say that they indicate the former existence in these 

 islands of an epoch when chipped implements were the only ones 

 employed. A few chipped axes have been reported from Santo Do- 

 mingo and other islands, but neither there nor in other islands are 

 the flint chips niunerous enough to afford conclusive proof of an 

 epoch, notwithstanding these implements and their chips closely re- 

 semble similar objects picked up on the sites of workshops in the 

 Old World. 



The discoverers of the West Indies early recognized tliat tlie abo- 

 rigines of different islands differed in their mode of life, their culture, 

 and their language. In early accounts we find two groups designated 

 as Arawak and Carib, accordingly as their life was agricultural or 

 nomadic. It was stated by the early travelers that these groups in- 

 habited different islands, the former being assigned to the Greater 

 Antilles, the latter to the Lesser. 



The large collection of artifacts characteristic of the aborigines of 

 the West Indies now available shows that the stone tools, pottery, and 

 other objects found on the islands inhabited bj' the Carib are radi- 

 cally different from those from islands on which the so-called Ara- 

 wak lived. Students of prehistoi-y did not at first connect this dif- 

 ference with any racial dissimilarity, but ascribed all these imple- 



' The culture historian i.s concerned with the distribution of archeological objects in 

 time and space or In history and geography. It is tor the geographer to interpret 

 geography in relation to history and for the historian to translate history by the interpre- 

 tation of the geographer. 



