ANTHROPOLOGY: C. WISSLER 
51 
eating well marked sub-areas — of which Barbados is one — in the differ- 
ent West Indies there is a certain unity which stamps them as belonging 
to one great culture area — the Carib-Arawak — extending through the 
islands from the heart of South America to Florida. This resemblance 
extending along the east coast of Central America to the Maya area, 
with which it has close afifinities, and along the north coast of South 
America to the mouth of the Amazon, is practically identical with the 
Arawak. 
CULTURE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS OCCUPYING 
THE CARIBOU AREA AND ITS RELATION TO OTHER 
TYPES OF CULTURE 
By Clark Wlssler 
AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. NEW YORK 
Presented to the Academy, November 2, 1914 
The anthropology of North America has now reached a stage in its 
development where larger and broader problems can be successfully 
pursued. In the past, for want of data and tried methods, investiga- 
tions were of necessity confined to tribal units and it was not until a 
considerable number of these units had been studied that any positive 
conclusions could be formed as to the continent as a whole. The fol- 
lowing brief statement is a mere summary of investigations bearing upon 
the origin and significance of the observed distribution of certain culture 
traits in the northern half of the continent. The method is to study in 
detail the collections in museums and to correlate the results with the 
field-data of anthropologists and the observations of travelers. 
A brief general discussion of the problem may be found in the review 
of the 'Material Culture of the North American Indians' in the Ameri- 
can Anthropologist, vol. 16, no. 2, and in special studies, as 'The Influ- 
ence of the Horse in the Development of Plains Culture,' American 
Anthropologist, vol. 16, no. 1, and the 'Material Culture of the Black- 
foot,' Anthropological Papers, American Museum of Natural History, 
vol. 5, part 1. These, however, are but preliminary to the more ex- 
haustive treatment of the problems now under investigation. 
1. Caribou Culture Defined. The material cultures of the Indian 
tribes occupying the interior of Canada present striking similarities. 
Their chief food was animal, the flesh of the caribou. Excepting the 
Pacific drainage and the prairie section, the entire area of Canada, 
including the interior of Alaska and the Arctic islands of the north, 
constituted the range of the caribou. Their range and that of the 
