THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 21 



been submitted to this end. None of the ingenious attempts to 

 show that there was a " Garden of Eden " here from which some 

 Adam or some Noah went forth, would stand analysis. The new 

 world, compared with the old world, so far as the age of man is 

 affected, is a new world indeed. 



In seeking to determine how America was populated we naturally 

 examine the land approaches of the two hemispheres. The route 

 from Asia over Bering strait seems to be and is the most plausible 

 one. Here under ordinary conditions bands of primitive ( the 

 word being used in a relative sense) Asiatic tribes found their way 

 from one continent to the other. At the time that migrations of 

 sufficiently large numbers of human beings were a possibility in this 

 direction, the human race must have attained a considerable cultural 

 advance. It must have possessed language, fire, stone tools, weapons 

 and warm clothing. If we assume that certain Asiatic groups did 

 press northward and then eastward across the strait, we are com- 

 pelled to account for the motives that impelled them. Why did they 

 leave the warmer regions to the south? Certainly the routes of 

 migration within the historic period have not been from the warm 

 or the temperate regions to the inhospitable ice fields of the north. 

 If man originated in tropical Asia it must have been a long time 

 before any stream of humanity was pressed northward to escape 

 the competition of others that were able to fasten themselves upon 

 more favorable climes. Yet the possibility, and indeed the probability, 

 -that certain groups, either voluntarily or under compulsion, 

 eventually found their way northward must be admitted. Man 

 hunts for a food supply. The primitive food supply was drawn 

 from the animal and the plant worlds. Desirable food was to be 

 found only in limited quantities and, thus, when the population 

 center in the southlands increased, wandering bands pressed out in 

 ever widening circles that, as they were removed from the center, 

 were deflected in streams. There were natural barriers, and there 

 were human enemies struggling to lay hold of food areas. Man's 

 social nature drew groups of men together and group consciousness 

 was ever present in the individual. The man of one group to the 

 man of another was an enemy who was liable to steal his women, 

 to appropriate his shelter beneath the rocks, and w^orst of all, to 

 come with other out-group enemies to appropriate the hunting ground 

 or the region where edible herbs, roots and berries grew. As the 

 north was approached competition grew keener. With these wander- 

 ings in search of feeding grounds the migratory spirit was developed. 



