February 27, 1885.] 



SCIENCE 



177 



In the chapters that relate to the archeology 

 of the Mississippi valley we are fortunately 

 on safer ground. The arts and industries of 

 the recent Indians, as seen in their ornaments 

 and implements, and as described b} 7 the early 

 chroniclers, furnish a convenient standard by 

 which to fix the place of the so-called mound- 

 builders in the scale of civilization ; and a 

 comparison of these remains with the mounds 

 and their contents enables us to sa} 7 with cer- 

 tainty that these two peoples, admitting them 

 to have been distinct, had attained to about 

 the same stage of material development. In- 

 deed, the two classes of remains are believed 

 to agree in every essential particular. Not a 

 single specimen has yet been taken from the 

 mounds, that indicates a different phase of civ- 

 ilization from that which the Indian is known 

 to have reached, — nothing which he could not 

 have made, or might not have bought from his 

 neighbors in Mexico or on the Atlantic sea- 

 board. This is certainly an important link in 

 the chain of evidence that points to the identit3 T 

 of the Indians with the mound-builders ; and 

 if we add to it the fact that the Indians are 

 admitted to have built both mounds and em- 

 bankments, and that "they are the only peo- 

 ple except the whites, who, so far as we know, 

 have ever held the region in which these re- 

 mains are found," it will be seen that there 

 is ample ground for the conclusion that the 

 mounds and enclosures of the Mississippi val- 

 ley, of every sort and size, " were the work of 

 these same Indians, or of their immediate an- 

 cestors." All other inferences are denied to 

 us until it can be shown, that, at some time in 

 the past, there lived in this valley a people 

 other than the Indian, who had reached the 

 same or a higher stage of development. To 

 sa}', as is sometimes done, that such a people 

 may have lived here, — and, for that matter, it 

 is as easy to suppose a dozen or two of them as 

 one, — ma}' be very true, but it does not meet 

 the point. Suppositions are neither facts nor 

 arguments ; and, unfortunately for the advo- 

 cates of this theory, the modern school of eth- 

 nologists has a decided preference for the last 

 two. Until, then, it can be shown that there 

 lived here, in prehistoric times, some other 

 people, who chipped flints, wove cloth, ham- 

 mered metals, worked in stone, manufactured 

 pottery, built mounds and earthworks, and 

 did all the other things that the ' red Indians 

 of historic times ' can be proved to have done, 

 it will not be necessary to go any farther, or 

 to waste any more time in search of a mound- 

 builder. 



In dealing with the architectural and other 



prehistoric remains of Arizona, Central Amer- 

 ica, and Peru, the same method of investi- 

 gation is followed with equally satisfactory 

 results. The cliff-dwellers, considered as a 

 separate and distinct people, with a civilization 

 different from that of the Pueblo Indians, are 

 made to take a place b} r the side of the mound- 

 builders, in the limbo of exploded theories ; 

 the deserted cities of Mexico and Central Amer- 

 ica are found to be nothing but the abandoned 

 dwellings of a people whose mode of life, as 

 Bandelier well says, "differed from the com- 

 munal life of the Indians in other regions onlv 

 by the exigencies of another climate and of 

 varying natural resources;" and the ruined 

 temples, palaces, and fortresses of Peru, 

 stripped of all exaggeration, and measured by 

 the same unfailing standard, are recognized as 

 a striking but legitimate product of the civiliza- 

 tion which was in existence there at the time 

 of the conquest, and which, in many of its fea- 

 tures, was but a counterpart of that which 

 prevailed in Mexico, and, we may add, in the 

 regions to the east of the Mississippi. 



This is a brief summary of some of the con- 

 clusions reached in the present volume, or 

 which may be deduced from the premises here 

 laid down ; and, to those of us who have watched 

 the progress of anthropological studies in this 

 country for the past few 3 r ears, it is needless 

 to say that they represent the current scientific 

 opinion of the day. Indeed, it could not well 

 be otherwise, since they are the logical results 

 of the application to American archeologj- of 

 the method of investigation which has been in 

 use everywhere else, and which is the only one 

 that promises to lead to an}- thing satisfactory. 

 The old plan of inventing a new civilization, or 

 resurrecting an extinct people by way of ac- 

 counting for eveiy differently shaped pot that 

 happened to turn up, has been tried, and found 

 wanting ; and we have at last adopted a system 

 of classification and comparison that enables 

 us to connote the relations between people and 

 things, to fix their several values, and assign 

 them their relative places in the scale of prog- 

 ress. Squier began the good work many years 

 ago, but failed to carry it to a logical conclu- 

 sion. When the mantle fell from his shoulders, 

 Morgan picked it up ; and, though he sometimes 

 swung the pendulum too far in his direction, 

 3'et there can be no doubt as to the tremendous 

 impetus he gave to the study. Following him 

 came the Bureau of ethnology at Washington, 

 the Peabody museum at Cambridge, the Ar- 

 chaeological institute of America, and the 

 Society des Am£ricanistes in Europe ; and it 

 is to their systematic exertions in the collec- 



