The morning call., 1893-09-24
PREHISTORIC AMERICANS.

Lieutenant l. M. L. Particle of the
United States army, who has been sta
toned in what is now called ''the new
Northwest" has collected some curious
information regarding the mound builders
OF Montana and the Dakotas. Thus far
our knowledge of those races has been
mainly derived from prehistoric research
in Wisconsin and States lying further
east But i: now appears that they must
have inhabited the whole tier of the
Northern States. Mounds of the usual
form are found all the way from the Mis-
sissippi to the valley of the Columbia.
They occur in the western provinces Of
Canada as we'll as in the new States of the
Union.
Perhaps the most interesting discovery
reported is that Of a subterranean ch amber
some forty miles southwest of Butte City.
The chamber is said to have been filled
with human skeletons, surrounded with
implements of war. vases and mOrtars.
One of the vases is said to have borne
carvings of figures and hierogiyphics SIM
liar in design to the Toltec carvings which
have been found in Mexico. This find, If
authentic, would furnish one more proof
that the Toltecs migrated into Mexico
from the country which is now the north
ern portion of the United States. In
archaeological circles there is hardly a
doubt of the fact. but every fresh piece of
evidence is welcome.
The salient problem in prehistoric sci
ence is the date which can be assigned TO
the migrations of the pIimeval races.
Major Powell and other high authorities
now incline to belief that these move
ments of the aborigines occurred in much
more recent periods than such writers as
Schoolcr aft assigned to them. They even
suggest that many of the copper imple-
ments which have been found in the
mounds were brought to this continent by
white men after the discovery by Colum-
bus. Their faith rests, in part, on the
quasi certainty that the Aztec conquest of
Mexico was contempcraneous with the
crusades, and that the monuments of Cen
trail America were constructed afterward.
Hence they are led to believe that there is
no reliable evidence of the existence of
man in North America at period over
1000 years ago. while there is indisputable
evidence of his existence in Europe, Africa
and Asia 5000 years ago.
The controversy has hardly yet taken
shape. When it becomes active geology
and elm atology will cut some figure in it.
In the BODY OF the famous mammoth skel-
eton unearthed in Missouri ashes were
found, showing the handiwork of man
during the lifetime of the mammoth. In
the superficial detritus which overlies the
detritus deposits in Tuolumne County in
this State fossil remains of the elephant
and the mastodon are reported 10 have
been found commingled with objects fash
iODed by the hand of man. Hence 1t would
seem that at some period or other man and
the various species of mammoth and mas
todoD must have lived side by side. But
scientific men do not admit that these
creatures can have existed within the mod
ern historic period. Therefore it must be
inferred that the antiquity of man goes
back Of the quaternary period. probably
into the pliocene age. which was passing
or had passed away before the pyramids
of Egypt were built.
These are problems of very high science
indeed, and with our present Information
it behooves US to approach them with eau
ton. 1t appears 10 be rash to suppose
that when three of the continents of the
world were abundantly peopled this con-
tinent was empty. So far as we can Judge
all the habitable portions OF the world have
always been inhabited with more or less
density. And again. If any faith is to be
reposed in the calculations of the Euro
pean philosophers who. reckoning by the
progress of gravel deposit and rock de-
nudation, have figured that man has lived
in the world for at least ten thousand
years. it seems uniustiiable to take for
granted that this part of the world has
only been occupied for one thousand 1t
is more reasonable to assume that If the
age of the mound-builders was contempo-
raneous with that of the Vandals and the
Normans there must have been an Ameri-
can race anterior TO them. Whether that
race left any traces by which its quality
can be discerned it is the business of mod
ern arcbeologists to find out if they can.