RESULTS OF AN INQUIRY AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF MAN IN NORTH 

 AMERICA DURING THE PALEOLITHIC PERIOD OF THE STONE AGE. 



By Thomas Wilson. 



The existence and the antiquity of the paleolithic period in Europe 

 had been so well established by the investigations of European pre- 

 historic anthropologists as to neither require demonstration nor admit 

 of discussion. 



The prehistoric people of iNTorth America, as they have been generally 

 known, whether mound-builders or Indians, all belonged to the neo- 

 lithic period of the stone age, unless there is to be established an age 

 of copper. 



Their cutting implements of stone were not brought to an edge by 

 chipping as was done in the paleolithic period, nor were these imph ments 

 chipped in the sense of the term as used in connection with that period. 

 On the contrary, they were polished or made smooth by rubbing against 

 or upon another stone. Their cutting edges were made sharp in the 

 same way. This was a new invention, and constituted the distinctive 

 mark between the civilization of the two periods. The peoples of the 

 neolithic period had much the higher civilization. They made pottery, 

 had flocks and herds, a knowledge of agriculture, a society organized 

 into tribes or bands, buried their dead with ceremony, mourned their 

 loss, and erected burial monuments. 



They were numerous in North America, and spread over or occupied, 

 at one time or another nearly, if not quite, the entire continent; their 

 tribes were many, they employed different languages, made and used a 

 variety of curious implements, and their monuments are yet a source 

 of wonder and surprise. These things have rendered the mine of eth- 

 nologic lore in America so rich and with such great opportunities, that 

 the attention of the anthropologist and ethnologist of our country have 

 been fully absorbed and left with but little incentive to investigate 

 that ruder but earlier period — the paleolithic. 



My attention has been turned towards this i^eriod, and I determined 

 to give it a share of that consideration to which I felt it was entitled. 

 I make but small claim to original discovery; most of my facts have 

 been heretofore known, but they were isolated, disconnected, unrecog- 

 nized, and almost valueless. I have now grouped them, here and there 



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