116 TRANSACTIONS OF THI? 



changes. All known camp and village sites, graves, mounds, 

 and ruins, belong to that portion of geologic time known as 

 the present epoch, and are entirely subsequent to the period 

 of the original dispersion as shown by geologic evidence. 



In the study of these antiquities, there has been much 

 unnecessary speculation in respect to the relation existing 

 between the people to whose existence they attest, and the 

 tribes of Indians inhabiting the country during the historic 

 period. 



It may be said that in the pueblos discovered in the 

 southwestern portion of the United States and farther 

 south, through Mexico and perhaps into Central America, 

 tribes are known having a culture quite as far advanced as 

 any exhibited in the discovered ruins. In this respect then, 

 there is no need to search for an extra-limital origin through 

 lost tribes for any art there exhibited. 



With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between 

 the two oceans, it may also be said that mound building 

 tribes were known in the early history of discovery of this 

 continent and that the vestiges of art discovered do not excel 

 in any respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to his- 

 tory. There is, therefore, no reason for us to search for an 

 extra-limital origin through last tribes for the arts discov- 

 ered in the mounds of North America. 



The tracing of the origin of these arts to the ancestors of 

 known tribes or stocks of tribes is more legitimate, but it 

 has limitations which are widely disregarded. The tribes 

 which had attained to the highest culture in the southern 

 portion of North America are now well known to belong to 

 several different stocks, and if, for example, an attempt is 

 made to connect the mound-builders with the Pueblo In- 

 dians no result beyond confusion can be reached until the 

 particular stock of these village peoples is designated. 



Again, it is contained in the recorded history of the coun- 

 try that several distinct stocks of the present Indians were 

 mound-builders and the wide extent and vast number of 

 mounds discovered in the "United States should lead us to 



