Archaeological Researches at Teotihuacan, Mexico

PART I EXCURSIONS INTO MEXICAN ANTIQUITY

PAR1~ I EXCURSIONS INTO MEXICAN ANTIQUITY W e do not with certainty know when, where, or how the first discoverers of America reached the New World. If we could answer the question why that continent first became the object of emigration, these problems would be easier of solution. It appears strange that the inhospitable - and nowadays sparsely populated - regions of northeastern Asia, which after the last glacial period cannot be supposed to have afforded particularly favourable natural conditions to man, could have played the part of a human reservoir for extensive waves of emigration . There cannot be much doubt, howevre, of the earliest emigrants having crossed from northeastern Asia via Bering Strait. That this might have taken place during the interglacial epoch, when climatic conditions with certainty were considerably more favourable, has a priori been rejected. The German geographer Albrecht Penck, however, has lately entered the lists in favour of the theory that America was populated prior to the last glacial epoch.I He maintains that it would have taken the immigrants a longer time than that which elapsed since the termination of the last glacial epoch to cover the distance from the extreme north of North America to the southernmost part of South America, and subsequently to adapt themselves so exceedingly well to the different natural surroundings. The basis of his argument is that the immigrants must, again and again, have had to remodel their culture, in accordance with fresh climatic conditions. NordenskiOld, on the other hand, is of opinion that the move from Bering Strait to Tierra del Fuego might have been accomplished in only )a few years): If the )cradle of mankind) be assigned to Central Asia, and no emigration to America took place in that far remotely distant age before the last glacial epoch - which seems extremely unlikely that it did - the problem assumes a somewhat different aspect.3 When some 200,000 years ago the great glacial period broke over the earth, Central Asia would seem to have been one of the climatically most favoured regions outside the tropics. Along the valleys of Kunlun, glaciers of extended length reached down from the Tibetan plateau, but otherwise the country was free from ice. There prevailed a climate much milder than at present. The rainfall was heavier, the rivers were 1 Penck 1930:Z3 seq. 2 Nordenskiold 1930:128. 3 For the data which here follow I am indebted to Dr. Erik No~ rin, a member of the Hedin Expedition to Central Asia. Mexico and Northern Central America. a sao 1000 Am ~!__~~__-b==~~!~~__~==~~==d! 100" 95 90· Fig. x. Map showing important ruin places in Southern Mexico and Northern Central America. flowing with much water, the boundless plains of the Gobi desert all the way to the lowlands of China were covered with grass and brushwood, affording abundant sustenance to masses of game, as well as to man and his domestic cattle. Nowhere else have the people of the earlier stone age left such abundant traces as in the Gobi desert, where the surface of the ground is strewn with implements from the different periods of the stone age. These bear witness to a population of hunters having in great numbers roamed over these expanses which now are nothing but sterile desert. But the periods of ice and cold came to an end. A milder climate melted away the masses of ice, and new possibilities offered themselves to the hunter peoples of Central Asia to seek fresh ground. Then the drying-up process of the land began. The rivers gradually ran dry, the lakes also began to dry up, and their water turned salty. Vegetation and animal life, including man, had to recede, and extensive emigration took 15 place eastwards as well as northwards. It is not improbable that this emigration, driven on by necessity, provided the very reason for the great migration via Bering Strait into America. If we suppose that mankind only entered America after the termination of the glacial epoch, such an immigration could at the very earliest have taken place 25,000 or 20,000 years ago.I Immigration must subsequently have continued for long periods of time, and the immigrants must have belonged to a variety of races. Only thereby can be explained the wide anthropological divergences found among the Indians, and the circumstance that in America upward of ISO different languages were spoken. These immigrants were...