Experimental Work in American 

 Archeology and Ethnology 



By Walter Hough 



HE classification and description of human artifacts has 

 always been an important work of archeologists and 

 ethnologists. The description of material has also laid 

 stress on structure, an inclusive term, and whatever might 

 SI be known or conjectured as to function. A third inquiry 

 must often have suggested itself to students — that of the process of 

 manufacture, but the pursuit of this investigation remained in abey- 

 ance until a few decades ago. The spirit of inquiry which exerted 

 itself powerfully under the influence of the Smithsonian Institution 

 and a few other scientific nuclei brought about a little more than a 

 generation ago a revolution of anthropological methods. Historically 

 this revolution began with Charles Rau, who took up the archeologi- 

 cal work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1875. An examination of 

 Dr Rau's writings, which were the most weighty that had appeared 

 in America, will show that he drew upon the resources both of 

 archeology and ethnology for his determinations of ancient mate- 

 rial, and that he gave importance to technology. About 1876 there 

 were in Washington, associated with the Smithsonian Institution 

 and the Geological Surveys, a number of young scientific students 

 whose minds were not hampered with outworn traditions. American 

 archeology was just entering a new phase; the leaven of investigation 

 was working in the minds of the coming American archeologists. Rau 

 had demonstrated the drilling of stone without metal in 1868, and 

 this appears to be the preliminary effort at American aboriginal 

 technology. The full statement of the subject in its wider manifesta- 

 tions, however, is found in the introduction to Holmes' 'Art in Shell," 

 in the Second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 

 1880-81, which shows the broad scope with which Holmes presented 

 the necessity for the study of prehistoric arts and industries. He 

 says (page 188): "The slightest modifications of these relics by the 

 hand of man attracts our attention, and from that infant stage of 

 the art until the highest and most elaborate forms are reached they 

 have the deepest interest to the student of human progress." Holmes' 

 plate xxxix depicts the manufacture of shell implements and orna- 



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