Prehistoric America

Chapter 10. THE ORIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA.

CHAPTER X. THE URIGIN OF MAN IN AMERICA. IN the preceding pages 1 we have reviewed the existing knowledge of ancient man in America. His temples, fortresses , dwellings, monuments, agricultural and hydraulic works, his personal characteristics, and even the relics of his dinners have been described in detail. This task being ended the inevitable question presents itself: Who and whence w;:.s this primitive man? Was he original to the soil of the New W orId? If not, how did he reach it, and what was the cradle of his race? It may be stated at the outset that our knowledge of primitive man in America suffices only to decide that he existed here, in a state of the lowest barbarism and but little elevated above the brutes, at an exceedingly distant epoch. While in this condition he has left his traces over both Americas, and that at a time which was probably contemporaneous with the existence of the mammoth (dep/las) if not with its perhaps somewhat older relative, the mastodon. That this primitive man was not original to America is probable on biological grounds. With those who believe in the spontaneous generation of large, highly organized mammals out of inorganic material, we have no argument. Those who accept the results of science, believing that the present lawful sequence of organic nature is at once an exemplar and epitome of the progress of nature in the past, and that the methods of the Author of nature are best com· prehended by studying them and their results,-will better comprehend the weight of the reasoning by which we are 1 For the present cha.pter the American editor is chiefly responsible. TIlE ORIGIN OF if/AN IN AMERICA. S19 led to decide against the existence of autochthonous man in the New World. The naturalist thus far has met with no traces of the higher anthropoid animals in America either recent or fossil. The American monkeys, it is admitted, are of a relatively low structural rank. On the other hand in various parts of the Old World, especially in Africa and some of the Asiatic islands, anthropoid animals approximating much more nearly to man in physical structure are well known to exist. The fossil remains of anthropoids of a tolerably advanced type are also more numerous, though these fossils are of such a nature, and the region possesses such climatic features, as to render their preservation at all rather a happy accident than an occurrence to be confidently anticipated. The insanitary and tropical character of the countries mentioned is also a serious obstacle in the way of geological research and the collection of fossil remains which might be happily preserved in later formations. No biologist of standing, we believe, would affirm that the physical structure of primitive man was developed from that of the anthropoid animals now in existence, or now known to have existed. But, other things being equal, it is probe able thatsuch a physical structure would find more favorable opportunities for its evolution in a region favorable to the evolution of allied types; such as the countries referred to are proved to be, not only by the actual occurrence of such types, but by the climate and eatable products which would serve as sustenance. What changes in the area of land and water have taken place since the progenitors of man appeared upon the earth we do not know, and any hypothesis must take this uncertainty into account, But judging from the facts as known to us we are justified in deciding against the probability of an American origin for the human race. Excavations in the middens and shell-heaps of all parts of the world indicate that man, at an epoch when his culture 520 PRE-HISTORIC AMERICA. was of the lowest, had already extended his geographical range over an immense area. It is impossible to fix a date for this extension of the race or to apply any other than an approximate geological chronology to the period of his wanderings and his conflicts with the cave bear, the reindeer, and the mammoth. It must also be remembered that the duration of the state of culture we refer to was very unequal in different regions and probably with different races or geographical assemblages of men. To this day in the remote corners of the earth it still persists and doubtless is not very different from...