Gunnison news-champion., 1916-07-14
LECTURE ON PREHISTORIC
COLORADO BY EMINENT
State AUTHORITY
(Continued from First Page.)

/ At the outse; it must be confessed
that our knowledge of the old Aztecs or
I Cliff Dwe!lers Is incomplete and frag-
mentary. and our conclusions respecting
them are subject 10 revision. We are
learning more and more about them as
the years 90 by but in some respects
We are mystifed. while some things are
cleared up. Some concentrations made
By archeOlogists concerning prehistoric
races must be modified. The investi-
cations Of government explorers in re-
cent years. notably those by DR.. J. W.
Fewkes, have added much to our stock
. Of information about the former inhabi-
tants Of Colorado. But what We know
falls short Of being history. In some
matters We are not on solid ground
We can only reach tentat We conclusions
What happened in the ages before
/ Columbus i. in part conjectural; it is not
to be called history; it is prehistoric.
Some important finds are TO be expect
ed after more excavations in the ruined
heaps OF the Mesa Verde
Newspaper writers and others have
done good deal Of romsncing about the
land Of the Cliff DweIlers and the peo-
pie. As a result, many errors respect
ing them are current and should be cor
rected. Some popular misconceptions
concerning the former denizens of the
Southwest and southwestern Colorado
may be mentioned.
As mas been stated. the Cliff Dwellers
We're not "the first inhabitants Of this
country" The primitive men of the
San Juan antedated them thousands of
years.
They were not "a race totally distinct
from the nomadic savages:" they were
not IAN ancient race entirely distinct
from the Indian" as has been claimed
Says Mclean im his book, The Mound
Builders. p. l3; An ancient race entirely
distinct from the Indian, possessing q
certain degree Of civilization, once in.
habited the central portion of the United
States Baldwin in Ancient America,
p. col, remarks: An ancient and un-
known people left remains of settled
life and of a certain degree of civilixa.
ton in the valleys of the Mississippi
and its tributaries" In the Preface OF
Bromwell's Song of the Wahbeck. p. z,
reference is made to "a superior race
who occupied the country before the
coming of the lnGian, a people who
worshiped the sun, and of whose exis.
tence the red race has handed down tra.
ditions. etc.
This brings US to the much discu ed
question as to the origin of the Ameri-
can Indians. There are three theories:
IU The aborigines. so-called, may have
been indigenous; (2) Asiatics may have
crossed Bering Strait to America or
drifted across the Pacific in open boats
from Japan to California or from Poly
nesia to the west coast of South Ameri-
ca; (3)men may have sailed from Europe
to America.
1t has been supposed that the Mound
Builders of the Mississippi Valley, who
had the migratory instinct, migrated TO
the Southwest about 1900 years ago.
Some of them settled and remained in
what is now Oklahoma, and as time
passed they worked westward into New
Mexico and Arizona and northwsrd into
Colorado and Utah. Another branch Of
them continued in a southernly course,
finally invading Mexico, where they
founded the Attic Empire early in the
fourteenth century. This theory is by
no means established. Itis known that
the Cliff Dwellers of southern Colorado
had much in common with the Aztecs Of
Old Mexico and the Pueblos of New
Mexico. The ancestors of the former
inhabitants of Southern Colorado may
have originally moved north from Old
Mexico into New Mexico and thence in
to Southern Colorado. This hypothesis
is tenable.
| One thing seems quite probable. The
ancients of America are all one people
The Mound Builders. Aztecs, Cliff Dwell
lers, Pueblos, Toltecs, Msyas and Peru
vians were American Indians. They
were dark-hued of copper color
They were medium sized. They had
reached cultural stage far beyond that
of the wild tribes around them. They
were sedentary agricultural people,
not SO warlike as the nomadic red men
of the prairies and the plains. The
Mound Builders are to be classed as
barbarians; SO were the Cliff Dwellers
The Aztecs of Mexico. and the Toltecs
Of Central America, were further ad-
vanced intellectually; they were civil
| :,ai - -. ,,arn Darnysapu ~ h.