54 
which most readily suggests itself is of 
course the old one of direct contact along 
the Pacific coast. Elements of material 
culture might well be adopted thus as a 
result of the chance drifting ashore of a 
eanoe with a handful of survivors, or even 
without these, from the region to the west; 
and the sporadic character of the occur- 
rence of such features as the plank canoe, 
known only in Chile and on the coast of 
southern California, might thus naturally 
be explained. The difficulty, however, in 
attempting to explain the whole problem 
in this way lies in the fact that it is not 
with the migratory and sea-roving Poly- 
nesians that the cultural coincidences are 
strongest, but rather with the Papuan (as 
opposed to the Melanesian) tribes of New 
Guinea and with the older cultures of 
Indonesia. / The Papuan tribes are not, so 
far as we know, a markedly seafaring 
people, and so far no evidence of their 
actual presence east of the 180° meridian 
has come to ight. The people of Indonesia 
also, among whom the resemblances are 
found, although far more capable naviga- 
tors, have nevertheless left no certain 
traces of their presence to the eastward of 
the Moluccas and the western end of New 
Guinea. Moreover, the Polynesians could 
hardly have served as the intermediaries 
through whom these elements were trans- 
mitted, as they themselves show, except for 
the plank canoe, little trace of them. Un- 
less, then, strong evidence should come to 
light of an earlier more easterly extension 
of Papuan and Indonesian peoples, or some 
explanation be offered for the almost com- 
plete absence of the features in question 
among the Polynesians, the solution of the 
problem by supposing a direct transmis- 
sion across the Pacifie seems barred by the 
facts of geographic position and history. 
A similar result seems also to appear if 
the attempt is made to trace the elements 
SCIENCE 
[N.S. Vou. XXXV. No. 889 
by way of the Asiatic and North American 
littoral. Thus in the present state of our 
knowledge, neither by way of the long, 
circuitous route through Asia, Bering 
Straits and Alaska, nor by the more direct 
route across the Pacific can we satisfac- 
torily account for the series of striking 
coincidences in culture between western 
America and particularly western South 
America, and Oceania with the neighbor- 
ing parts of southeastern Asia. 
Such a negative conclusion or verdict 
of ‘‘not proven’’ is generally most unsatis- 
factory. In the present ease, the coinci- 
dences are so striking, in both character 
and distribution, that we are almost forced 
to believe in some sort of historical connee- 
tion. But I believe we should for the 
present continue to be cautious. The pos- 
sibility of independent development must 
not be denied even in the case of these 
quite peculiar features, nor need the fact 
that only a portion of the American 
peoples showing coincidences live in simi- 
lar tropical or semi-tropical environment 
be regarded as a serious objection to this 
hypothesis. 
To revert again to my title, I believe 
that in the present state of our informa- 
tion, we must still regard American In- 
dian culture as in all its essentials and in 
most of its details, as of independent 
growth, uninfluenced by the cultures of 
the old world, and recognize that its geo- 
graphical isolation has in fact proved to 
be a cultural isolation also, and that; al- 
though certain curious coincidences un- 
doubtedly exist with parts of Oceania and 
southeastern Asia, no historical relation- 
ship between the cultures of the two 
widely separated regions can as yet be 
said to have been established. That with 
increasing knowledge historical relations 
may indeed be shown seems to me wholly 
possible, but its demonstration must rest 
