The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-12
EARLY MAN IN AMERICA.

anu MOnunSNtS-Ine NdEleu ociVhSN'
 Which Aid the Student Who Exam ines Them.
 Harvard university has raised the study of archaeology and ethnology to the dignity of full-fedged department and has intrusted the conduct or the same to Professor r. w. Putnam, cura- tor of the Peabody museum. In thls connection the Boston Transcript gives an interesting explanation of the way in which investigations into the antiq- uity of man must be pursued. It says: | Man leaves behind him when he dies his bones, his tools and his monuments, | and these are the things from which have been derived all 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 Tor his inscriptions, his art and his relics.
 Bones are of the greatest importance, l for oftentimes man has left no other tokens of his existence behind him. The 1 first study, therefore, to the archaeolo- | gist Is that of the comparative anato- my of the human race. It is necessary | to distinguish human bones from those | of animals, to study racial characters and to determine the sex Skulls must be studied with the greatness minute ness, for in them lie some of the most l important evidences of origin and prog ress. It 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 | ha ic a at the antiquity of mans relics may be made.
 The tools which served in the rude | arts of early man were first of stone. roughly fashioned to the needs of the work, and later of metal. Mineralogy is therefore an important study to the archaeology. The stone relics furnish rough index to the amount of civlliza- ton; they indicate in a crude way the extent of ntercommunication; they I show how new Ideas came to the races; they serve in manner to distinguish between different grades of antiquity, and in many ways they are important. The mineralogist who finds copper mug gets in the graves of North Carolina prehistoric Indians know 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 guess ed at only by one with acute percep- tion, and the finding of one of the shells as fetich of one of the tribes was a bright exploit. It was evident that this relic had made it's Journey 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 preferences of man the lustrous river | shells have been attractive to him. and | the distribution of them has been ex- ceedingly 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 aborigines had number of ingenious ways of revolving the vessel, how with fingers and combs and a hundred other implements the primitive decoration was incised, and | crude colors were made wherewith to paint the earthenware. This study of accomplished. He must know by what of the highest importance. The mate rials are imperishable, and, while the vessels in a whole condition are rare, the fragments indicate the more impor- tant clements in the story. In the shapes of the vessels there is rudimen- tary art in form; while in the decora- s tion there are the beginnings of paint ing and sculpture. In the painted or incsed figures there is the key to re1a- tionships in tribes, races and relig- ions.
 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 affinties of ancient man.
 No word Is necessary to uphold the importance of the monuments, when, lacking the forerunners of paper. the ancients recorded their history in cut or painted monuments. Egypt, Assyria and Central America, each in 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 withheld
 Languages form an exceedingly inn portant 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 of
 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 lan- guage with another the ground is often- times new, but he who would make his mark in this field must be prepared with a knowledge of what has already been old pots is exceedingly interesting and gradations aboriginal man made prog
 ress from the representations of ani- : mals that indicated his successful hunt ing or the photographs that recorded his victories in war to the imaginative : ones that represented his mythic beings