HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



coast and that of the maritime provinces of Canada. The latter 

 supposition is based on the reports of Willoughby, 1 Moorehead, 2 and 

 Dixon, 3 who have concluded from their archeological investigations 

 in Maine that a proto-Algonquian culture existed in this region. 

 It has furthermore been brought out that this culture, owing to 

 certain peculiar traits, such as the abundant use of red ochre, the 

 absence of many types of manufactures, and the frequent occurrence 

 of long, slate lance-heads, gouges, large chipped blades, and tapering 

 chisels, may have been related to the famously convenient Beothuk. 

 While the principle of identifying one type of culture with another 

 on the basis of a few general resemblances is, of course, inadvisable, 

 nevertheless, the fact that we have so little knowledge of both these 

 ancient groups perhaps gives a few resemblances of the kind men- 

 tioned a little extra weight in the opinions of the supporters of the 

 theory. However it may be, at least in this initial stage of our study, 

 evidence now seems to be accumulating in favor of the idea that a 

 type of culture earlier and cruder than the historic Algonquian was 

 at home in the lower St Lawrence maritime provinces and northern 

 New England area. Hence by coordinating the remainders, it might 

 be thought that the Beothuk formed the last isolated outposts of 

 this culture. Finally, should we accept the evidence of Algonquian 

 linguistic and ethnological resemblances to Beothuk as conclusive of 

 relationship, we should have to assume that the early culture type 

 belonged to a primitive Algonquian group antedating the later 

 Algonquian occupants. A certain confirmation is lent this theory 

 by certain uniformities in the simplicity of types in archeological 

 material so far as we have it from the region under discussion. A 

 further fundamental ethnic simplicity is a uniform characteristic of 

 the Algonquians both north and south of the St Lawrence, this 

 simplicity extending through social, ceremonial, artistic, and indus- 

 trial life. May this prominence of negative traits not be a surviving 

 feature indicating the tribes of the region to be representatives of an 

 early wave of Algonquian culture? 



To return to the subject under discussion, for the want of a better 

 idea at present, I am inclined to regard the Tadousac material, and 

 perhaps the Maine archeological material as well, as coming from 



1 C. C. Willoughby, Prehistoric Burial Places in Maine, Archaeological and Ethnological Papers 

 of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, vol. I, no. 6, pp. 50-51. Also discussion by Willoughby 

 of The Red-paint People of Maine, American Anthropologist, vol. XVII, no. 2, 1915, pp. 406-9. 



2 W. K. Moorehead, The Red-paint People of Maine, American Anthropologist, vol. xv, no. I, 

 I 9 I 3i PP- 33~47- See also vol. xvi, no. 2, 1914, pp. 358-361, and Mr Moorehead's paper in the 

 present volume. 



s R. B. Dixon, The Early Migrations of the Indians of New England and the Maritime Pro- 

 vinces, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April 1914, pp. 3-14. 



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