SWANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 821 



where spoken of the region as a kind of ethnological "sink." From the 

 researches of Collins it seems that the higher culture once extended 

 farther toward the west, at least along the coast, but the boundary in 

 the early period of white contact is very abrupt and very marked. 

 Toward the north the Southeastern cultural area also appears to have 

 shrunken, the earthworks and other signs of cultural advance in the 

 Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys testifying to a former marked 

 extension in that direction. In historic times the boundary was nearly 

 identical with the northern boundaries of the Chickasaw, Creeks, and 

 Cherokee. Westward of the Mississippi one Siouan tribe, the Quapaw, 

 had penetrated as far south as the mouth of Arkansas River and taken 

 on some aspects of Southeastern culture. The southernmost of the 

 central group of Algonquian tribes, the Shawnee, also penetrated the 

 region, though most of their penetration took place after white con- 

 tact. From this contact, however, they seem to have acquired cer- 

 tain Southeastern characteristics. Toward the northeast the boundary 

 of this culture area is by no means as distinct. Representatives of 

 three stocks, Iroquoian, Siouan, and Algonquian, lay close together 

 here and in immediate contact with the more typical Southeastern 

 tribes but they did not take on Southeastern culture in full measure. 

 The Cherokee, although it is probable that they arrived in their his- 

 toric territories at a very late time, acquired more of the culture they 

 found there than the Algonquians or Siouans. In their case and in 

 that of the Tuscarora, however, who lay farther east, we may suspect 

 that they had been in contact with the southern tribes from a very early 

 epoch, though their southern location w^as probably late. The Algon- 

 quian tribes of the North Carolina and Virginia coasts, while showing 

 the effects of southern contact, retain more features derived from their 

 connection with the Algonquian tribes to the north but along with 

 them new characters which suggest the appearance of an entirely inde- 

 pendent culture area, one showing some traits reminiscent of the north 

 Pacific coast. The Siouan tribes to the west and south of them exhibit, 

 in the few items of information we have, a lower type of culture than 

 even the Algonquians, though the paucity of our information here 

 forbids dogmatism. Such a conclusion is, at least, in line with Speck's 

 findings among the Catawba and it is supported by the paucity of 

 archeological remains that may be attributed to them. If these 

 Siouans were to be treated as marginal peoples and the tidewater 

 Algonquians as a nascent and distinct cultural province, we should 

 be about as correct in our diagnosis as when we include them in the 

 great province of the Southeast. There are also some grounds for ex- 

 cluding from the typical section of the Southeast the tribes of southern 

 Florida, but the differences here seem attributable rather to a differ- 

 ence in the life province, that is, the environment, and the origin of 



