ANCIENT MAN IN NORTH AMERICA 273 
branch of this stock enter the new world ? we receive 
very uncertain answers from those who have studied 
the early population of America. At present, only a 
tentative answer can be returned to the questions just 
asked, but to those who watch the vigour and success 
with which the thriving anthropological schools of 
America are pursuing the study of ancient races and 
ancient civilisations, it is quite apparent that a full answer 
will be given us at no distant date. 
There is no need here to give a general review of 
the evidence relating to the antiquity of man in North 
America. That has been excellently done in the publi- 
cations issued by the Bureau of American Ethnology,-^ 
and by Dr G. Frederick Wright in his latest work. 
The Origin and Antiquity of Man. The investigations 
of Dr Wright, and of other American geologists who 
have studied the physical condition of North America 
during the Pleistocene period, are of the greatest service 
to anyone in search of the remains of ancient man. 
They have shown us that the variations of climate in 
North America during the Pleistocene period were very 
similar to those of Europe. There were the same 
southward extensions of the ice sheet in the colder 
phases ; the same northward retreats in the interglacial 
or milder intervals. 
It is beyond the scope of this work to give a systematic 
description of the ancient remains of man discovered 
in America. All we propose to do here is to make a 
rapid journey across North America from east to west, 
citing the evidence of the more important discoveries 
of the remains of ancient man as we go. The line of 
our journey follows the zone occupied by the fringe 
of the ice sheet during the period of maximum glaciation. 
In America, as in I^'.urope, the glacial deposits are the 
treasure-houses of the student of prehistory. 
1 See Bulletins of Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian 
Institution, Washington, particularly No. 33: "Skeletal Remains 
suggesting or attributed to Early Man in North America," by Dr Ales 
Hrdlicka, 1907. 
18 
