Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899Various
Religion
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, July 1899: Volume LV, No. 3, July 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
What is held, primarily, to be an evidence of paleolithic man is a
wrought stone implement, that in Europe was characteristic of his
handiwork. Here, in the valley of the Delaware, this same form of
implement has been confidently asserted to be a rejected piece of
stone--usually argillite--that failed to lend itself to reduction to a
finished blade or spear point. If this could be established as of
invariable application, however the supposed "reject" occurred, then
the whole matter would be brought to a quick conclusion. But the
"reject" theory has utterly failed of establishment. The typical
paleolithic implement is not characteristic of the refuse of an
arrow-maker's workshop site, and the familiar arrow points of small
size, nor even the long, thin blades of several times their length,
were reduced from masses greatly larger than the desired form. The
refuse of many a chipping site shows this conclusively; and, as
hundreds of failures demonstrate, many an arrowhead was made from a
pebble but a trifle larger than the finished object.
But admit, for argument's sake, the identity in shape of a "reject"
and a "paleolithic" implement; this does not prove their identity in
age and origin, and it is not an unwarranted or illogical suggestion
to draw a distinction between the two, where the conditions under
which they occur suggest a possibility of diverse history. Rather than
demonstrating that all rudely chipped stones are "failures," it should
be shown that paleolithic man, as we know of him in Europe, could not
possibly have existed here. This has not only never been attempted,
but the conditions during and immediately subsequent to the glaciation
of the river valley have been asserted, time and again, to have been
favorable for man's existence. Furthermore, it has not been shown that
a typical paleolithic implement could not have been available on this
continent, as it undoubtedly was in Europe, as an effective weapon,
and it must be remembered that the fauna of the Delaware Valley was,
in glacial times, very like that of parts of Europe in what we may
call the reindeer period. Like conditions may not have produced like
results in the case of early man, but what was practicable in Europe
was certainly so in America, and the question resolves itself into
that of determining if any trace of man that has been discovered in
the valley of the Delaware can be dated back to a time preceding the
Indian as he was when first he came in contact with the European. Did,
in other words, the Indian bring his art with him from Europe or Asia,
or did he experience a growth in culture from paleolithic simplicity
to neolithic complexity?
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