1892.] Importance of Prehistoric Anthropology. 685 
Our acquaintance with the aborigines of this country began 
with Columbus in 1492, but the real history and our first 
actual knowledge of them began no earlier than 1600, proba- 
bly 1604 or 1608, now only 280 years since. Americans, there- 
fore, of the present day, are only removed from the prehistoric 
man of the whole country by that period, nor is it even so 
long, for this was the commencement of our knowledge. The 
authors at that time saw him face to face, were able to describe, 
and wrote their histories of him. He has continued with us 
ever since, and we have from that time to the present had full 
and ample opportunity to increase our informatien concerning 
him by investigation, examination and personal contact. 
In France and England, in fact over Western Europe, the 
period when the last possible contact with prehistoric man 
could have taken place, the time when all our knowledge con- 
cerning him acquired from observation ended with the inva- 
sion of Cæsar. So that while the American has not to go back 
farther than 280 years to study the prehistoric man of his 
country, and has had him present ever since, the Englishman 
and Frenchman has to go back nigh 2,000 years; and their 
opportunities of personal contact ended then if it had not 
before. It is not at all certain that the Gaul and Briton ‘of 
that epoch is the real prehistoric man. He may have been 
related to him, possibly his descendant, but it appears that the 
prehistoric bronze age had practically ended in that country, 
and the iron age begun from four to nine hundred years before 
the advent of Cæsar. 
-I have said this much to show the difference in the respec- 
tive opportunities for the study of prehistoric man between 
Europeans and Americans. 
The territory of France is about 200,000 square miles; that 
of the United States is about 3,600,000, eighteen times larger 
than France. Mile for mile and acre for acre, the United 
States will yield as much to the student of prehistoric arche- 
ology as will that of France, yet with this difference in area 
of equal fruitfulness, the United States government is far 
behind that of France in its interest and assistance given to 
this science. 
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