The Journal of Geology, January-February 1893: A Semi-Quarterly Magazine of Geology and Related SciencesVarious
Science
The Journal of Geology, January-February 1893: A Semi-Quarterly Magazine of Geology and Related Sciences
Various
Geology -- Periodicals
But the scheme does not end with the repetition of a European state of
affairs. Our gravel archeologists have not been content to adopt that
feature of the foreign scheme which utterly destroys the paleolithic
race before a higher culture is brought upon the scene. It was
thought to improve upon the borrowed plan by allowing for a gradual
development upward from the paleolithic stage, represented exclusively
by a class of meaningless bits of flaked stone, through a period less
rude, characterized by productions so far advanced as to be assigned
to a definite use. These latter productions consist mainly of rather
large and often rude blades, sometimes plain, but generally notched or
modified at the broader end as if to be set in a handle, or attached to
a spear or arrow shaft. These were assigned to post-glacial times in
such a way as to bridge or partly bridge the great space between the
glacial epoch and the present. They were separated arbitrarily from the
body of the collections of the region, and referred to as probably the
work of an Eskimo race. This arrangement produced a pleasing symmetry
and completeness, and brought the history of man down to the beginning
of the Indian epoch, which is represented by all of those forms of art
with which the red man is historically associated.
Three principal periods are thus thought to be represented by the
finds at Trenton; and in the arrangement of the collections these
grand divisions are illustrated by three great groups of relics, which
are looked upon by the founders of the scheme as an epitome of native
American art and culture. By others this grouping is looked upon as
purely empirical, as an arbitrary separation of the normal art remains
of the historic Indian, not suggested by anything in the nature or
condition of the objects, nor in the manner of their discovery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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