50 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 6l 



After what has been said on the geographical distribution of mono- 

 liths we may dismiss without serious consideration the theory that they 

 were made by one and the same great race. Equally unattractive is the 

 specious corollary that migrations of culture, save within limits, can 

 be traced by them. 



They represent a phase of religious thought, of spontaneous origin 

 almost identically expressed. Commonly associated with tombs or 

 burial places, they are almost universally connected with the cult of 

 the dead. They are both cultural and religious, or expressions of a 

 phase of racial feeling at a time before the two had been differentiated. 



In closing it is well to emphasize the main object of the preceding 

 pages and to point out that monoliths and colossi are geographically 

 widespread and not limited to one continent or to any one race of man. 



They express a profound racial self-consciousness of power 

 amounting to a religious feeling ; incidentally as in arts, 1 institutions, 

 beliefs, and languages, environment furnishes material for or modi- 

 fies the expression of this consciousness and stimulates endeavor, but 

 culture is due to mental efforts to overcome environment by in- 

 vention. 



If you will bear with me for a few moments longer I will close 

 with a plea for the comparative method of study in culture history. 

 The objection that the existence of megalithic structures with like 

 form and meaning in both the Old and Xew Worlds does not indicate 

 derivation of one from the other is a lame argument against the use of 

 the comparative method of discovering what has caused these resem- 

 blances. The speaker would heartily agree that likenesses in the 

 megalithic habit do not indicate identity of culture, but he believes 

 that these resemblances have a deep significance which comparisons 

 may reveal. 



As is apparent to those familiar with the literature of archeology, 

 few new facts are here added to our knowledge of great stone monu- 

 ments, nor is it claimed that the comparison of monoliths of the Old 

 and New Worlds is an original thought. An attempt has been made 

 to show, by a comparison of similar stone objects, that there is a 

 unity in mental action among very different races of man, and that 

 this similarity, modified somewhat in expression by geographical 

 environment, is an important factor in human history. 



1 Of late the term " material culture " is commonly used by ethnologists in 

 rather loose way, apparently embracing all material objects characteristic of 

 culture. This is a convenient term, but the intrinsic association of religior 

 and culture cannot be lost sight of in studies of human expression. 



