H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 159 



final point on which I may touch. It is customary for those who argue 

 against the theory of post-Neolithic outside contacts with America, to 

 direct their shafts against the view that the cultural influences came by 

 the stepping-stones of the Pacific Islands. It is generally admitted that 

 the Pacific has been colonised by more than one stream of immigrants 

 from Asia, but that cultural influences of any importance reached America 

 by this route is probably allowed by few. For my own part, although I 

 would not exclude the possibility of some slight infiltration through 

 Oceania, I would look to Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, and its islands, 

 as the immediate source of sporadic incursions, extending over centuries, 

 which added at intervals immigrants allied in physical and mental type. 

 and possessed of cultures increasingly advanced, to the original stock of 

 the New World. Knowledge of ' God's own country ' lying to the east- 

 ward, began in North-East Asia, and may well have extended southward 

 with the centuries. The further south the adventurers came from, the 

 later the intrusive culture, and the higher its level. The more recent 

 southern immigrants, perhaps possessed of ocean-going vessels, may 

 have struck straight across to the New World they already knew of, or 

 they may have coasted northwards along the shores and islands of Asia, 

 and made a shorter crossing. They chose their landing places in the 

 warmer latitudes such as they were accustomed to, leaving the northern 

 coasts to the earlier and more hardy navigators who had preceded them. 

 There is much technological and other evidence to support this view, but 

 it cannot even be outlined in this address. 



This is my last digression, and it is made to emphasise my strong 

 belief that the culture of the American Indian is a derived culture, in all 

 essentials, and that an explanation is to be sought in frequent contact 

 with Asia, from the time of the first immigrants down to an uncertain 

 period, but perhaps continuing into the early centuries of the Christian 

 era, as Prof. Elliot Smith contends. We are only at the beginning of the 

 study of possible or probable early relationships between Asia and 

 America, and until we have a much more detailed knowledge of the 

 archaeology of both these continents, we must make the best of such 

 material as there is, and of such lines of argument as may be valid or 

 congenial. 



Conclusion. 



To conclude, the views and arguments I have put forward may seem 

 moderate to some, extreme to others, and I claim no more for them 

 than that they may help to a better understanding of the mode of evolu- 

 tion of man's material culture, and to a fuller appreciation of the large 

 assumptions upon which is based the belief in the frequency of independent 

 evolution. Whatever may be our individual position in the diffusionist 

 controversy, we must all admit, I think, that man has always and every- 

 where an environmental mind, and that he can only move forward on 

 prolongations of the lines that can be seen by looking backward. ' One 

 thing leads to another ' is man's ancestral motto. 



