The record-union., 1898-03-23
EARLY MAN IN AMERICA.
STORY TOLD BY HIS BONES
TOOLS AND MONUMENTS.
The Varied Sciences Which Aid the
Student Who Examines Into
the Antiquity OF Man.

RN0AS ~ al SAeICOlO5g anu ~
the dignity Of a full-hedged depart
ment, and has intrusted the conduct of
the same to Profession F. w. Putnam,
Curator Of the Peabody Museum. In
this connection the Boston Tran
script gives an interesting explana-
ton of the way in which Investigations
into the antiquity Of man must be
pursued 1t says:
Man leaves behind him when he dies
his bones, his tools and his monuments,
and these are things from which have
been derived ali the items of our
knowledge OF him and his progress up
to the time when he learned to write.
And even in the historic age the story
would be much less complete but for
his inscriptions, his art and his relics.
Bones are of the greatest Importance,
for oftentimes man has left no other
tokens of his existence behind him.
The first study, therefore, to the arch
aeologist is that Of the comparative
anatomy of the human race. 1t is nee
essary to distinguish human bones
from those of animals to study racial
characters and to determine the sex.
Skulls must be studied with the great
est minuteness, for in them lie some
of the most important evidences of ORR
gin and progress. 1t is desirable also
to study the animals, for the bones of
men are often found intermingled with
those of the animals that he had slain
or that have conquered him. and in
the cases where the animal is one now
extinct a guess at the antiquity of
mans relics may be made
The tools which served in the rude
arts of early man We're first of stone,
roughly fashioned to the needs of the
work and later of metal. Mineralogy
is therefore an important study to the
archaeOlogiSt. The stone relics fur
nish a rough index to the amount of
civilization; they indicate in crude
way the extent of intercommunication
they show how new ideas came to the
races; they serve in manner to dis
tinguish between different grades OF
antiquity, and in many ways they are
important. The mineralogist who finds
copper nuggets in the graves of North
Carolina prehistoric Indians knows
that these men had some manner of
communication with the Great Lakes.
A knowledge of zoology is requisite
too The presence of the horseshoe
crab in legends and traditions of the
tribes of our arid West could have
been guessed at only by one with acute
perception, and the finding of one of
the shells as a fetch of one of the
tribes was a bright exploit. 1t was evil
dent that this relic had made it's jour-
ney from hand to hand over two or
three thousand miles of country at a
time when it was exceedingly wild
Then there are the shell ornaments.
The present craze for the river pearl
is no new thing. AS far back as there
is any evidence of the preference of
man the lustrous river shells have been
attractive to him, and the distribu-
ton of them has been exceedingly
wide
Then there is the pottery. Here one
must study the beginnings of the use
full arts; he must know how the pots
are made, how in lieu or in advance of
the potter's wheel the aborgines had a
number of ingenious ways of revolv-
ing the vessel, how with fingers and
combs and a hundred other implements
the primitive decoration was incised,
and how with clays andi ores of iron
the first crude colors were made where
with to paint the earthenware. This
esting and of the highest Importance.
The materials are imperishable, and,
while the vessels in a whole condition
are rare, the fragments indicate the
more important elements in the story.
In the shapes of the vessels there is
rudimentary art in form; while in the
decoration there are the beginnings of
painting and sculpture. In the paint
10 a <aV
to relationships in tribes, races and
religions.
Closely allied is the art of carving the
finishing and ornamenting of tools and
implements And there are besides the
textiles, and, although the primitive
loom is an extremely simple affair,
which the savage nations have evolved
or copied into very similar forms, still
the materials employed and the pat
terms yield much information about the
ancestry and affinities Of ancient man.
No word is necessary to uphold the
Importance of the monuments, when,
lacking the forerunners of paper, che
ancients recorded their history in cut
or painted monuments. Egypt, Assyria
and Central America, each in a differ
ent way, show the value of the close
study of the monuments, and the sto-
ries Of these countries would have lack
ed the greater part Of their interest had
the testimony of walls and obelisks and
the magnificent sculptures been with
held.
Languages form an exceedingly i'm
portaut part of the preparation of the
archaeologist. Of course he must know
the modern ones to keep abreast of the
worlds progress in research, the an
nouncements being made in any one or
the important living tongues. But COM
parative philology is equally necessary,
for it may serve to give the key to the
relationships of one set of characters
with another.
In the comparison of one symbol Ian
guage with another the ground is oft
entimes new. but he who would make
his mark in this field must be prepared
with a knowledge of what has already
been accomplished. He must know by
what graduations aboriginal man made
progress from the representations of
animals that indicated his successful
hunting of the photographs that record
ed his victories In war to the magma
tive ones that represented his mythic
beings and the deities that control the
storms and the thousand other steps
that intervene between these characters
and the alphabet.
Then, of course. the student must IA
miliarize himself with the beginnings
of religion. He must study faithfully
the treasure of folklore. He must learn
the great original fairy tales that are
common to the uncivilized world. He
must have a clew to the underlying
reasons for variations in them; they
must be collated and compared, so that
through them there rraav he added TO