Page:The American Indian.djvu/427

Rh what periods, and in what forms, the assumed similarities came into existence.

We must now take leave of our brief review of culture in the New World. We have found the highest centers of culture in Mexico and Peru to be not really unique growths, but to possess many of the fundamental traits common to the wilder folk in the marginal areas of both continents. New World culture is thus a kind of pyramid whose base is as broad as the two Americas and whose apex rests over Middle America. We have found no just ground for assuming that the culture of the Maya was projected into the New World from the Old, where it rested as an isolated replica of cultures beyond the Pacific. That influences of various kinds did reach the New World from the Old is apparent, but each of these must, upon its own merits, particularly as to its chronology, be subjected to the most exacting investigation.

However, the discovery of New World origins is not merely a problem in culture. Language is also regarded as a reliable index to origin. So far, no evidence has come to hand that would identify a single New World language with an Old World stock. In fact, the only language found in both America and Asia is the speech of the Eskimo, represented in Asia by a small group of villages, on the extreme eastern coast of Siberia. This exception may be ignored in this instance. Then, though there is great diversity of language within the New World itself, we have a right to expect that if colonies were planted here by an Old World culture, such colonization would have grafted-in Old World tongues. Yet, so far, there is no trace of such intrusion. Hence, as the case stands today in language, we must conclude that the separation of New World man from the man of the Old World, was exceedingly remote, so remote that the existence of an advanced state of culture among the original stock is improbable.

Finally, there is the question of blood. Our review of New World somatic characters revealed the essential unity of the Indian population. It is also clear that there are affinities with the Mongoloid peoples of Asia. Hence, we are justified in assuming a common ancestral group for the whole