Page:The American Indian.djvu/333

 sequential development in richness and complexity. Thus, Smith's results in the Columbia area and Nelson's shell-heap work in California show simpler and somewhat cruder cultures for the lower parts of their deposits, but the persistence of many fundamental forms throughout suggests that the succeeding cultures were built upon the foundation laid down at what seems to have been the period of earliest occupancy. This also seems to be true of shell and other deposits on the Atlantic Coast. Even in the Pueblo area we find a similar condition. Consequently the best interpretation we can give the observed data is that in the formative period of New World cultures the types now appearing in our areas were localized, but less differentiated. Such uninterrupted occupation of an area would not result in good examples of stratification, but would give us deposits in which culture changes could be detected only in the qualities and frequencies of the most typical artifacts; for example, Nelson's pottery series from New Mexico. This is an altogether different condition from that confronting the archæologist in Western Europe.

INAPPLICABILITY OF OLD WORLD CHRONOLOGY

The only place in the whole world where we have a connected view of man's career from the first to the last is in western Europe. This is not taken to mean that that restricted area was the place of our origin, but simply that it is the one part of the earth where we have full data. Everyone is familiar with the few grand periods into which this history is divided, as Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc., and there is a natural tendency to assume that these sequences for western Europe must hold for the whole world. Consequently, many efforts have been made to discriminate between Paleolithic and NeolothicNeolithic [sic] in the data for the New World. Some of the earlier writers sought to identify the typical forms of Paleolithic chipped implements by selecting those that closely parallel European types, but such matching of forms could not give certain conclusions and was eventually abandoned. Nevertheless, some modern students of European