1 2 INTRODUCTION. 



that man continued to exist in California in company with the Mastodon and other 

 extinct animals. As the archaeologist has no right to be governed by any preconceived 

 theories, but must take the facts as he finds them, it is impossible for him to do other- 

 wise than accept the deductions of so careful and eminent a geologist as Professor 

 Whitney, and draw his conclusions accordingly, notwithstanding the fact that this 

 pliocene man was, to judge by his works in stone and shell, as far advanced as his 

 descendants were at the time of the discovery of California by the Spaniards.] 



In this early race there would then he found one element which would 

 tell for a long time on its successors : — the furnishing' anew of blood of one 

 branch of the original stock to the modifications formed in other branches 

 developed after long separation and under different conditions. Among 

 these conditions would be, possibly, that of contact of some of the branches 

 with some other primitive stock; for until we find the "missing link" 

 which holds at least two pendants of the chain, we hardly have the right to 

 assume that man had but one birthplace, and ignore the apparently primary 

 differences which now exist between races. Even granting the postulate 

 that man is developed from some early Primate, is it not as possible that he 

 was an offshoot from the generalized monkeys of the Eocene of America 

 as from the ape stock of the Old World? 



It is probable that what may be called the Eskimo element in the phys- 

 ical characters and in the arts of the Californians is due to the continuance 

 of the impress of type from a primitive American stock, which in the 

 present Eskimo, or Innuit, is probably to be found its purest continuation. 

 Of course, the important objection can be made that this early race was 

 not the primitive race of the coast of California, because it had reached too 

 high a degree of development ; but it must be remembered that the race 

 through its different representatives, has probably existed on the coast for 

 an immense length of time, and under favorable climatic conditions which 

 would allow of all that we know of its development in the arts of savagery. 

 Mr. Dall, in his valuable paper on the Tribes of the Extreme Northwest, 

 has shown that on the Aleutian Islands at least a decided development has 

 taken place since the period of the deposit of the echinoderm heaps, appar- 

 ently left by the first inhabitants of the islands, through the fishing and 

 hunting stages, and it is very likely that a similar development may yet be 

 found on the coast of California, if not destroyed by the violent geological 



