Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/278

264 The question as to the antiquity of the Omori deposits naturally arises, and the evidences all point to a considerable antiquity, suggested by the entire absence of worked metals, as well as of finished or polished stone implements, the few implements found being of the rudest character.

The change which has taken place in the coast-line by upheaval, since the deposits were made, has not the importance which would be ascribed to it in a more stable country.

The next question arises as to whether the deposits are Aino or pre-Aino. The race who left these remains were pot-makers par excellence. It is generally admitted by ethnologists that the art of pottery once gained is never lost. It is a fact, however, that neither the



Esquimaux, Aleutians, Kamtchadales, nor the Ainos, are essentially earthen-pot makers, their vessels being usually wrought out of stone or wood, and their ancient stone vessels are often met with in various parts of Japan.

If the unquestionable resemblance between the ornamentation of some of the fragments and similar styles of ornamentation among the present Ainos be looked upon as indicating a community of origin, what shall be said of the following figures of knobs found in a shell-heap on the Upper Amazon by the lamented Prof. Hartt? The knobs themselves are so unlike anything figured heretofore, and yet so precisely do they resemble similar knobs which are most common in the Omori deposits, that were they mixed with the collection it would be