48 



„¥ 



-'-OS 



Shehh of riUagc-silc. 

 K, ka^him, d, beach. 



the arch?eology of America is well knoAvn, as is the fact that the conditions 

 of the stone age and the most advanced civilization exist simultaneously 



in the social state of living inhabitants of 

 ■^-^ the North American continent in different 

 ^Cr_ regions. Hence it follows, in our archaeology 

 as well as in our paleontology, that we must 

 break away from received ideas and nomen- 

 clature, which fulfill their purpose in accel- 

 erating the study of the successive epochs 

 in Europe, but which, when applied to the 

 differing conditions of America, to a certain 

 extent at least, fetter and confuse. Even 

 in America, the conditions are by no means 

 so uniform as to authorize a single system 

 of nomenclature in archaeology. For intel- 

 ligent study we must separate at least three regions, the Mississippi Valley, 

 the Pacific Slope, and the Mexican Region, and perhaps to these should be 

 added an Atlantic Region, extending from the Chesapeake to Labrador. 



The generalizations in this paper, however, cannot claim even so 

 extended a range as might be implied by one of these regions. They refer 

 only to the past conditions of life, as the facts in evidence show to have 

 existed in the Aleutian Islands and the immediately adjacent shores of the 

 continent. It is probable that the insulated condition and the narrow range 

 of subsistence within which the ancient islanders were confined had much 

 to do with the sharpness of the contrast between the successive stages which 

 the strata of the shell-heaps reveal. 



From the observations and collections about to be enumerated, it appears 

 to me probable that the following generalizations are well founded : 



I. That the islands were pojiulated at a very distant period. 



II. That the population entered the chain from the eastward. 



III. That they were, when they first settled on the islands, in a very 

 different condition from that in which they were found by the first civilized 

 travelers. 



