This dogma is called the autochthonous origin of Indian cultures. It asserts that practically all the traits, discoveries, and inventions which Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro found in the New World were homegrown products—importations barred. The question at issue between the friends and the opponents of this dogma is commonly expressed as Independent Invention versus Diffusion. But the phrasing is not quite accurate: it needs a little amplification. Anything invented by man is in a sense an independent invention. In the present case we are talking of an invention made in one center, the New World, independent of a similar invention in another center, the Old. We are concerned, not with independent invention, but with _parallel_ independent invention. “Diffusion” is still more inaccurate. Normally it means the gradual transfer of some trait or technique from one people to another, often through the intervention of a third or of a third and a fourth people. In the present discussion it is more a matter of a people’s carrying the trait or the technique to a new home. The question is not merely, “Did the Indian invent pottery?” or “Did the American Australoid invent the bull-roarer?” It is rather, “Did he invent it in the New World or the Old?” or “Did he invent it in the Old World and carry it to the New?” or “Did he invent it in the New World while another fellow invented it in the Old?” This problem of parallel independent invention versus diffusion is important to any discussion of early man, because it can also be phrased: “Did he or did he not bring traits from the Old World that may indicate his racial ancestry?” [Illustration: FROM BURMA TO MELANESIA TO AMERICA? _Among the most curious resemblances between traits in the New World and in the Old are those of Panpipes. Certain pipes from the Solomon Islands have been found to have the same scale and the same absolute pitch as specimens from western Brazil. Double rows of pipes come from the hinterland of Burma, from the Solomon Islands, and from Panama and the Andean highlands, and in all these areas the two rows are tuned in the same relation to each other. The two sets may be lashed together, like these from the Solomon Islands, left, and from Bolivia, right, or they may be merely connected by a cord and blown by two men or, alternately, by one. (Left, after von Hornbostel, 1912; right, after Nordenskiöld, 1924.)_] [Illustration: _The material used in these fishhooks—pearl shell in Tahiti; abalone shell on San Nicolas Island, off southern California—dictated the slight difference in shape. Objects like these are found only in these general areas. (Courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.)_]