288 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. ( 



AUeghanies; or probably even the north 

 Pacific coast and the southwest, where at 

 least the majority of tribes had some eom- 

 munieation with the majority of others. 

 With the restricted intercourse in central 

 California, common cultural traits should 

 be chiefly general, or of a negative char- 

 acter, and local divergences numerous. 

 The degree of uniformity which exists is, 

 therefore, the more significant. 



From the first, archeological investiga- 

 tion in California has concerned itself with 

 questions of time more than with those of 

 culture. It was inevitable that this should 

 be so from the sensational if as yet unsub- 

 stantiated discoveries of a generation ago. 

 Of recent years there has been rigorous 

 search for evidences of the geological an- 

 tiquity of man, and positive results from 

 which would have been the more reliable 

 from the fact that the work has been con- 

 trolled by geologists. It can not be said, 

 however, that more has yet been shown than 

 that there are good prospects for the ulti- 

 mate establishment of the existence of man 

 in the state at an early period. But a clue 

 is not a discovery, and probability and 

 opinions represent precisely the status of 

 the question which it is desirable to leave 

 behind. Of recent years no one has ven- 

 tured to assert positively the human origin 

 of the possible artifacts dating with cer- 

 tainty from Quaternary time, or the geo- 

 logical antiquity of finds of unquestionably 

 human origin. Until such an unequivocal 

 statement of faith is made by those most 

 inclined to a favorable opinion, the skeptic- 

 ally disposed Avill doubt. The work that 

 has been done is encouraging; but proof 

 of the geological antiquity of man in Cali- 

 fornia remains to be made. 



Rather unexpectedly, investigation of 

 shell mounds and deposits on San Fran- 

 cisco Bay has resulted in evidences of an- 

 tiquity sufficiently great to be geologically 

 observable. In a number of mounds on the 



immediate shore-line the base has been 

 found to be from three to twelve feet below 

 the present water level. On the other 

 hand, there is at least one case of an exten- 

 sive shell deposit at a point more than a 

 mile from water and at some elevation 

 above sea level, the presence of which it is 

 difficult to explain except on the assump- 

 tion that the shore-line has undergone a 

 corresponding elevation. Of course the 

 question at once arises how great a time 

 would be required to effect such changes in 

 a region subject to seismic disturbances. 



On its cultural side archeology seems to 

 show above everything else that, broadly 

 speaking, the civilization of California is 

 of some age, and has scarcely changed dur- 

 ing the period, perhaps of thousands of 

 years, through which the accumulating 

 finds take us. There is no trace of pottery 

 in former times where it has not been 

 found in the historic period. There are no 

 evidences of agriculture or of architecture 

 in stone. The plummet-shaped charm- 

 stones are found chiefly in regions where 

 their use by the Indians has been seen, or 

 explanations as to their employment have 

 been had from the Indians. The straight 

 tubular pipe is as characteristic of the pre- 

 historic as of the present native inhabitant 

 of the state. The peculiar hooked stone 

 adze handle, the large obsidian blade, the 

 perforated stone, the pestle ringed near the 

 bottom, are found buried in village-sites, 

 and in use by the Indians of to-day, in 

 northwestern California. The more spe- 

 cialized of these forms, such as the adze 

 and pestle, are observed by both archeolo- 

 gist and ethnologist only in this region. It 

 would thus appear that even local cultural 

 characteristics are of considerable age. 

 Scarcely any unexplained types of imple- 

 ments, and no forms of art unpractised at 

 the present day, are found by the archeolo- 

 gist. Even where minor changes have 

 taken place, they are superficial. The bowl- 



