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The National Geographic Magazine 



low order. When the Pacific coast ab- 

 origines are compared with those of the 

 Atlantic coast and the interior, the}' 

 are found notabl)'^ more primitive in 

 activital development ; their activities 

 Avere autochthonal and narrow, while 

 those of their eastern contemporaries 

 were broadly provincial ; and in most 

 other respects they occupied a far 

 lower cultural plane than that of the 

 vigorous Algonquian and Iroquoian and 

 Siouan peoples of the eastern plains 

 and shores. It is significant, too, that 

 the prehistoric relics of the Atlantic 

 coast are much more abundant and 

 seem to attest a longer and more varied 

 occupanc}' than the corresponding relics 

 of the Pacific belt. Briefly, the re- 

 searches concerning movements of tribes 

 and peoples show that the American 

 aborigines cannot be treated as a unit 

 in the stud}^ of migrations, or of the 

 peopling of the various parts of the 

 continent ; at the same time they have 

 thrown much light on the actual lines 

 of development and movement of the 

 aborigines during the centuries preced- 

 ing the discovery by Columbus. 



The definition of the culture stages 

 and the recognition of the lines of growth 

 and migration of tribes and confedera- 

 cies throws some light on the question 

 as to the origin of the aborigines, and 

 removes the inquiry from the domain 

 of pure speculation. Summarily it maj' 

 be noted, first, that the various lines of 

 activital development are convergent, 

 and, second, that the history of ever}' 

 known tribe or confederacy is a record 

 of interclan or intertribal blending and 

 union. Accordingly, the course of ab- 

 original development in America during 

 prehistoric tiines can be pictured only 

 by a series of convergent and inter- 

 blending lines, coming up from a large 

 but unknown number of original sources 

 scattered along the various coasts of the 

 continent. 



It has not yet been found possible 

 to reduce the period of aboriginal oc- 

 cupancy of the Western Hemisphere 



either to the accepted units of chronol- 

 ogy or to the time-scale of geology. 

 Various observers have reported human 

 relics from different geologic deposits 

 ranging in age from Miocene to late 

 Pleistocene ; but the more critical re- 

 searches of the Bureau (conducted 

 partly in cooperation with the United 

 States Geological Survey) have shown 

 that the evidence of association is mani- 

 festly erroneous in nearly all cases, and 

 inconclusive in all. The latest special 

 researches relating to the antiquity of 

 man were conducted in the autumn of 

 1898, in the gold belt and Table-moun- 

 tain zone of California, whence various 

 human relics have been reported from 

 Tertiary formations ; the inquiries onh^ 

 served to reveal the various sources of 

 error by which the original observers 

 were not unnaturall}^ misled. The chro- 

 nologic inquiries indicate occupancy 

 of various districts several centuries be- 

 fore the coming of white men, but there 

 is nothing to indicate, with any strong 

 degree of probability, an occupancy of 

 more than fifty or sixty centuries — the 

 body of phenomena indicating a much 

 briefer period of habitation than that 

 attested by the more abimdant and 

 varied relics of the Eurasian continent. 

 In brief, there is no unmistakable indi- 

 cation of human occupancy of the West- 

 ern Hemisphere during any of the geo- 

 logic periods as commonly defined, nor 

 more than a very few millenniums before 

 the landing of Columbus. 



During the year (1898) the collabora- 

 tors of the Bureau of American Ethnol- 

 ogy, with several other American an- . 

 thropolo gists, have found it convenient 

 to apply a distinctive term to the aborig- 

 ines of the American hemisphere, viz., 

 Amerind. The term is susceptible of 

 use in different grammatic forms, and 

 does not involve confusion with the 

 modern population of Caucasian deriva- 

 tion. It is applied collectively to the 

 several aboriginal tribes and tribesmen 

 of the American hemisphere, including 

 the Eskimo. 



