Studies for Students 



THE CRITERIA REQUISITE FOR THE REFERENCE 

 OF RELICS TO A GLACIAL AGE.^ 



INTRODUCTION. 



The criteria herein discussed are given shape with special 

 reference to human relics because these possess pre-eminent 

 interest, but they are equally applicable to all relics, whether 

 they are those of man, of animals, or of plants. The criteria 

 are also defined with special reference to America, though they 

 are equally applicable to the Old World. This is not by any 

 means to say that the facts are the same on the two continents. 



The theoretical grounds for assuming the existence of man 

 somewhere on the globe in preglacial times are very strong. In 

 Europe the evidences of man's presence during some of the 

 interglacial periods appear to be substantial. So far as America 

 is concerned, the question is purely one of fact to be determined 

 strictly by scientific evidence. There seems to me little or no 

 legitimate ground for a predisposition to accept or to decline to 

 accept a glacial or preglacial antiquity for man in America. The 

 existence of the race upon the eastern continent in glacial times 

 does not carry any special presumption of its existence upon 

 the western continent at that time. The belief that man origi- 

 nated upon the eastern continent rather than upon the western 

 has something of strength in biological considerations, and is 

 supported by the preponderance of existing geological evidence. 

 If man originated in the Old World, the time when he 

 migrated to the New is an open question until it is closed by 

 thoroughly sound evidence, precisely as it is in the case of the 

 migration of any of the mammals which originated upon the 

 eastern continent and is now a denizen of the western. If it is 



' Read in abstract before Section E, A. A. A. S., Washington Meeting, January, 

 2, 1901. 



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