14 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



in America, whether the race is homogenous or composite, the emigra- 

 tions of stocks and tribes, the origin^ of the stocks, the cause of the 

 great diversity in languages, and the relations with the people of the 

 old world in ancient times. 



We are confronted with evidences of diverse forms of develop- 

 ment and many interesting forms of material culture. Before us we 

 have definite problems of the influence of climate, of food, of 

 environment and of geographical location upon large groups of man- 

 kind. Xowhere else upon so fresh and fertile a field may this record 

 of human development be studied with such advantage as in 

 America. Here we may learn many of the basic facts of anthro- 

 pology and follow them a long way, if not to a final conclusion. 



xA.nthropology embraces several coordinate sciences, each of which 

 is important in itself. The student of race origin and development 

 will find that he must be principally concerned with somatology, 

 ethnology and archeology, though there are other important branches 

 v.diich must be understood, if facts are to be logically correlated. 



It is to local archeology, however, that in this work our attention 

 is directed. Through the interpretations made by archeological 

 methods our specific task is to determine what races, stocks and tribes 

 occupied this State; to discover what they made; what they used; 

 how and where they lived; what of art and science they knew; and, 

 even more boldly, to discover, perchance, what these autochthones 

 thought and desired. 



Archeology, concerning itself with man before the time of letter- 

 written history, must find its records amid the crumbling debris of 

 former ages. It must bring to light the evidences of human activit}' 

 and translate these evidences into written records. This must be 

 done with exceeding care for all human sciences lead back to 

 archeology and draw data from it. 



2 THE ORIGIX OF MATERIAL CULTURE AND HUMAX PROGRESS 



It is becaitse man became a user of objects external to his own 

 hands as tools that he has risen above beasts. But so long as 

 man only employed the natural objects about him without chang- 

 ing their form he was only one step in advance, though that was a 

 long one. It was when the first groups of men learned, by direction 

 of their own will, through the guidance of their experiences, how 

 to shape wood, bone and stone as tools and ornaments, that the 

 second great step was taken, and ihe 1)cast world was left behind 



