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W. H. HOLMES' ARTICLES FROM THE HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIANS, BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, 1905. [[article clipping]] [[acquired?]] such marked physical characteristics as to be regarded as a separate race of very considerable homogeneity from Alaska to Patagonia, is regarded as indicating a long and complete separation from their parental peoples. Similarly, the existence in America of numerous culture groups, measurably distinct from one another in language, social customs, religion, technology, and aesthetics, is thought to indicate a long and more or less exclusive occupancy of independent areas. But as a criterion of age the testimony thus furnished lacks definiteness, since to one mind it may signify a short time, while to another it may suggest a very long period. Native historical records of even the most advanced tribes are hardly more to be relied on that tradition, and may prove of little service in determining the duration of occupancy of the continent by the race, or even tracing the more recent course of events connected with the historic peoples. No one can speak with assurance, on the authority of either tradition or history, on events dating farther back than a few hundred years. Archaeology, however, can furnish definite data with respect to antiquity; and, aided by geology and biology, this science is furnishing results of great value, although some of the greater problems encountered remain still unsolved, and must so remain indefinitely. During the first centuries of European occupancy of the continent, belief in the derivation of the native tribes from some Old World people in comparatively recent times was very general, and indeed the fallacy has not yet been entirely extinguished period this view was based on the apparently solid foundation of the Mosaic record and chronology as determined by Usher, and many works have been written in the attempt to determine the particular people from which the American tribes sprang. (See Popular Fallacies, and for various references consult Bancroft, Native Races, v, 1886; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, I, 1884). The results of researches into the prehistoric archaeology of the Eastern continent during the last century, however, have cleared away the Usherian interpretation of events and established the fact of the great antiquity of man in the world. Later, investigations in America were taken up, and the conclusion was reached that the course of primitive history had been about the same on both continents. Observations that seems to substantiate this conclusion were soon forthcoming and were readily accepted; but a more critical examination of the testimony shows its shortcomings and tends to hold final determinations in abeyance. It is clear that traces of early man are not so plentiful in America as in Europe, and investigations have proceeded with painful slowness and much halting along the various lines of research. Attempts have been made to establish a chronology of events in various ways, but without definite result. The magnitude of the work accomplished in the building of mounds has been emphasized, the time requisite for the growth and decay upon these works of a succession of forests has been computed (see Mounds). The vast accumulations of midden deposits and the fact that the strata composing them seem to indicate a succession of occupancies by tribes of gradually advancing culture, beginning in savagery and ending in well-advanced barbarism, have impressed themselves on chronologists (see Shell-heaps). Striking physiographic mutations, such as changes of level in the consequent retreat or advance of the sea and changes in river courses since man began to dwell along their shores, have been carefully considered. Modifications of particular species of mollusks between the time of their first use on the shell-heap sites and the present time, and the development in one or more cases of new varieties, suggest very considerable antiquity. But the highest estimate of elapsed time based on these evidences does not exceed a few thousand years. Dall, after carefully weighing the evidence collected by himself in Alaska, reached the conclusion that the earliest midden deposits of the Aleutian ids. are probably as much as 3,000 years old. Going beyond this limit, the geological chronology must be appealed to, and we find no criteria by means of which calculations can be made in years until we reach the close of the Glacial epoch, which, according to those who venture to make estimates based on the erosion of river channels, was, in the states that border the St Lawrence basin, not more than 8,000 or 10,000 years ago (Winchell). Within this period, which in middle North America may properly be designated post-Glacial, there have been reported numerous traces of man so associated with the deposits of that time as to make them measurably valuable in chronological studies; but these evidences come within the province of the geologist rather than of the archaeologist, and findings not subjected to critical examination by geologists having special training in the particular field may well be placed in the doubtful category. Post-Glacial rivers, in cutting their channels through the various deposits to their present level, have in some cases left a succession of flood-plain terraces in which remains of man and his works are embedded. These terraces afford rather imperfect means of subdivid- [[/article clipping]]
