DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO EARLY MAN 37 
whelming and unequivocal proofs that the bones and artifacts in 
question were not recent before they could be assigned to geological 
antiquity ? 
Even this, however, is not all. In considering the problem of hu 
man antiquity in any region anthropology must take into considera 
tion the broader aspects of the case and ask whether, in the light of 
our actual knowledge, the presence of man in that region during the 
specified geological period was probable, or even possible. This is of 
especial importance on the American Continent for the reason that 
man here is not autochthonous, but must have immigrated from some 
other part of the earth. Thus the first question to be considered in 
every case on this continent where we are confronted with the prob 
lem of man s antiquity is, Could man have been present in the locality 
in question, or even in America, during the period to which the finds 
seem to belong or are being attributed? This difficult question for 
tunately can be met with something more than mere hypotheses. 
According to all indisputable evidence which we now possess man s 
age is comprised well within the Pleistocene and Recent periods; 
that is, within possibly 500,000 to 000,000 years. By far the larger 
part of this time, however, was required for his cultural development, 
physical differentiation, multiplication in numbers, acclimatization 
to new environments, and his spread over the immense territories of 
the Old World, the warmer parts of which were his cradle. Before 
all these results were accomplished or were far advanced man evi 
dently could not have reached the distant, isolated Xew World; and 
there is much evidence that this was not reached until very late in 
man s history, in postglacial times or at the earliest toward the end 
of the Quaternary. As late as the Aurignacean culture period, ap 
proximately 15,000 to 25,000 years ago, man had not yet fully reached 
modern standards in physical development, had made no pottery, 
knew no metals, did not extend to northern Europe, left no evidence 
that he knew even the crudest navigation, and can not possibly be 
conceived of as having been numerous enough to reach the north- 
easternmost limits of Asia, from which alone there was a practical 
way open to the American Continent. How could we have, then, 
in this country man of even much greater antiquity? These con 
siderations can not be easily passed over. They rest on a mass of 
realities and would have to be completely explained away before 
anthropology could admit the presence of geologically early man in 
the New World. 1 
1 More detailed discussion of various phases of the subject will he found in the writer s 
reports on Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America 
(Bull. 33, Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1907) ; Early Man in South America (Bull. 52, Bur. Amcr. 
Ethn., 1912) ; The Most Ancient Skeletal Remains of Man, 2d edition, 1910, reprinted 
from Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1913; and The Genesis of the Indian, 
Trans. Nineteenth Intern. Congress Americanists, Washington, 1917. 
