726 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



feature of the west coast clivisiou". Aud thus we might, if this were 

 the proper place to euter into details, go on enumerating marked dis- 

 tinctions between these two primary ethnological sections. As evi- 

 dence of the fact stated let any one compare the tigures in Ensign 

 Albert P. Niblack's excellent work on The Coast Indians of Southern 

 Alaska and Northern British Columbia,' with the Mexican and Cen- 

 tral American monuments and tigures. The marked resemblance in 

 many of the designs will probably be sufficient to convince him of some 

 relation between the peoi)les of the two sections or derivation from 

 some common source; for example, the headdress, PI. ix, with the head- 

 dresses of the Copan statues ; the superimposed heads on the skirt, No. 

 34, PI. X, with the similar series of ornaments on the fa^^ade of the Casa 

 de Rl »njas of Uxmal ^ and on other structures, and the general designs 

 of the totem posts and mortuary columns shown therein with statues 

 of Nicaragua. There is, however, a somewhat remarkable break in the 

 continuity of types along the western coast of upper California. 



How are we to explain this? That the spread of particular types 

 over such a vast extent of country varies with environment and local 

 conditions, must be admitted. We must, therefore, consider these 

 types as ethnic peculiarities, having a common origin, or adopt the 

 theory of Prof. Dall that "they have been impressed upon the Ameri- 

 can aboriginal world from without," for which influence we must, beyond 

 question, look to the region of the Pacitic.' But the sonu'what distinct 

 limits to which some of the more marked of these types are confined, 

 especially as we find them on the most ancient monumeuts, must be con- 

 sidered ethnic, as pertaining to particular stocks or tribes. Prof Dall's 

 theory is, after all, but a different metliod of expressing substantially 

 the same idea. To impress peculiar characteristics in j)rehistoric times 

 re(piired long contact or intermingling, hence by settlement on the con- 

 tinent. Are we to presume from the differences between western and 

 eastern types that the latter are due to immigration on the Atlantic 

 side! 



The general tendency of the more recent opinions in regard to the 

 peopling of the continent is that it was at least partly ii"om the Atlantic 

 side. This is shown by the fact that some recent authorities, abandon- 

 ing the more generally received theoiy that the original jxipulation 

 came from the Pacific side, are inclined to look to Europe as the original 

 source. For example. Dr. Brinton remarks in his " Eaces and Peoples : " 

 "These knotty points I treat in another course of lectures, where I 

 marshal sufficient arguments, I think, to show satisfactorily that 

 America was peopled during if not before the great ice age; that its 

 first settlers probably came from Europe by way of a land connection 

 which once existed over the northern Atlantic." But he does not stoji 

 here, as he adds, " and that their long and isolated residence in this 



1 Published by the Smithsonian Institution. 1890. ' Third Ann. Eep. Bureau Ethn., p. 147. 



^ Bancroft's Native Races, vol. 4, p. 185. 



