The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
We feel that we have done but scant justice to this subject, but
we assure our readers that this question has been but little
studied in this country. Referring all relics of stone to the
Indians, our scholars have been slow to recognize traces of an
earlier race in America. Our sources of information are as yet
but few, and much remains to be done in this field. In Europe as
in America, scholars are still hard at work on the Paleolithic
Age, and we are to hold ourselves in readiness to modify our
opinions, or to reject them entirely and adopt new ones as our
knowledge increases.
There is one thought that occurs to us. From the combined
investigations of both European and American scholars, the Eskimo
is seen to be one of the oldest (if not the oldest) races of men
now living. They afford a striking illustration of the fact that
a race may early reach a limit of culture beyond which, as a
race, they can not pass. Should the American discoveries
establish the fact that the River Drift tribes are also Eskimos,
then we are fairly entitled to consider them the remnant of a
people who once held possession of all the globe, but who have
been driven to the inhospitable regions of the North by the
pressure of later people. What changes have come over the earth
since that early time? In the long lapse of years that have gone
by newer races, advancing by slow degrees, have at last achieved
civilization. The fiat of Omnipotent power could have created the
world in a perfected form for the use of man, but instead of so
doing, Infinite Wisdom allowed slow-acting causes, working
through infinite years, to develop the globe from a nebulous
mass. Man could, indeed, have been created a civilized being, but
instead of this, his starting-point was certainly very low. He
was granted capacities in virtue of which he has risen. We are
not to say what the end shall be, but we think it yet far off.
Stone Implement.
REFERENCES
The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Dr. C. C.
Abbott, of Trenton, New Jersey, for criticism.
Dana’s “Manual of Geology,” p. 735, _et seq._
Ibid., p. 753.
Whitney’s “Geology of California,” Vol. I.
Whitney’s “Geological Survey of California,” Vol. I.
Dr. Newbury’s “Geological Survey of California.”
Whitney’s “Auriferous Gravels of California,” p. 283.
Cambridge Lecture, 1878.
Cambridge Lecture, 1878.
“Native Races,” Vol. IV, p. 698.
In general, all about Sonora, in the auriferous gravels, are
found bones of extinct animals, and, associated with them, many
relics of the works of human hands. These are found at various
depths down to one hundred feet. (Whitney’s “Auriferous
Gravels,” p. 263.)
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