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                     P R E H I S T O R I C   M A N




[Illustration]





[Illustration: KASKATACHYUH.
 A CHIMPSEYAN CHIEF.
 Drawn by D. Wilson LL.D. from sketches by Paul Kane.
 Cooper & Hodson Lith.      188, Strand, London, W.C.]




                     P R E H I S T O R I C   M A N


               Researches into the Origin of Civilisation
                     in the Old and the New World.


                                   BY

                     DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E.
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY & ENGLISH LITERATURE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO;
          AUTHOR OF THE ‘PREHISTORIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND,’ ETC.



                  THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED,
                          WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.



                                LONDON:
                   M A C M I L L A N   A N D   C O.
                                 1876.

               [_The right of translation is reserved._]




                      Edinburgh University Press:

        THOMAS AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.




                            IN FOND MEMORIAL

                   OF A BROTHER’S LIFE-LONG SYMPATHY

                      IN MANY FAVOURITE RESEARCHES

                             THESE VOLUMES

             DEPRIVED BY DEATH OF THEIR PURPOSED DEDICATION

                  ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE LOVED NAME OF

                      GEORGE WILSON, M.D. F.R.S.E.

   LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
           AND DIRECTOR OF THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND.




                            P R E F A C E.

THE subject primarily treated of in the following pages is the man of
that new hemisphere which was revealed to Europe in 1492. There through
all historic centuries he had lived apart, absolutely uninfluenced by
any reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient World; and yet, as it
appears, pursuing a course in many respects strikingly analogous to that
by means of which the civilisation of Europe originated. The recognition
of this is not only of value as an aid to the realisation of the
necessary conditions through which man passed in reaching the stage at
which he is found at the dawn of history; but it seems to point to the
significant conclusion that civilisation is the development of
capacities inherent in man.

The term used in the title was first employed, in 1851, in my
_Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, where evidence was adduced in proof of
man’s presence in Britain “long anterior to the earliest indications of
the Aryan nations passing into Europe.” It was purposely coined to
express the whole period disclosed to us by means of archæological
evidence, as distinguished from what is known through written records;
and in this sense the term was speedily adopted by the Archæologists of
Europe. But the subject thus defined is a comprehensive one; and in its
rapid growth, distinctive subdivisions have been introduced which tend
to narrow the application of the term. Nevertheless it is still a
legitimate definition of man, wherever his history is recoverable solely
by means of primitive arts.

The first edition of _Prehistoric Man_, published in 1862, was followed
in 1865 by another, carefully revised in accordance with later
disclosures. Since then I have availed myself of further opportunities
for study and research in reference both to existing races, and to the
arts and monumental remains of extinct nations of the New World. Within
the same period important additions have been contributed to our
knowledge not only of the arts, but of the physical characteristics of
primeval man in Europe. In the present edition, accordingly, much of the
original work has been rewritten. Several chapters have been replaced by
new matter. Others have been condensed, or recast, with considerable
modifications and a new arrangement of the whole.

The illustrations have been correspondingly augmented; and some of them
engraved anew from more accurate drawings. In the first edition they
numbered seventy-one. They now amount to one hundred and thirty-four,
including several for which I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. John
Evans, F.R.S., to the publishers of _Nature_, and to the Council of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

                                                                  D. W.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO,
  _18th November 1875_.




                            C O N T E N T S

                               CHAPTER I.
                              INTRODUCTION.
  The Influence of the Discovery of America—The Old World and the
    New—American Phases of Life—The Term Prehistoric—Influence of
    Migrations—What is Civilisation?—Domestication—Indian
    Philosophy—Aborigines—The Tartar; The Arab—Languages of
    America—Wanderings of the Nations—Fossil Man—Occupation of the
    New World,                                                        1

                               CHAPTER II.
                        THE PRIMEVAL TRANSITION.
  The Latest Migrations—Founding a Capital—Beginnings of
    History—Prehistoric Phases—Non-Metallurgic Eras—Oscillations of
    the Land—The Glacial Period—Conditions of Climate—Fossil
    Mammalia—The Flint-Folk of the Drift—Advent of European Man—The
    Drift Implements—Scottish Alluvium—Preceltic Races—Their
    Imitative Arts—Man Primeval—His Intellectual
    Condition—Instinct—Accumulated Knowledge—Primeval Britain—Its
    Fossil Fauna—Ossiferous Caves—Brixham Cave—Food—Scottish
    Reindeer—American Drift—Relics of Ancient Life—Extinct
    Fauna—Man and the Mastodon—Indian Traditions—Giants—Drift
    Disclosures—Large Ovoid Discs—Cave Disclosures—American Cranial
    Type—Antiquity of the American Man,                              17

                              CHAPTER III.
                               THE QUARRY.
  The Quarry—Brixham Cave—Brixham Flint Implement—Flint Ridge,
    Ohio—Flint Pits—Drift Quarry Deposits—Traces of Palæolithic
    Art—Lanceolate Flints—Almond-shaped Flints—The Shawnees—The
    Colorado Indians—Caches of Worked Flints—Sepulchral
    Deposits—Cave Drift Disclosures—Illustrative
    Analogies—Cincinnati Collections—Hornstone Spear-heads—American
    Neolithic Art—Flint Drills—Modes of
    Perforation—Flint-Knives—Razors and Scrapers—Arrow-head
    Forms—Discoidal Stones—Sinkers and Lasso Stones—Cupped
    Stones—Archæological Theories—Georgia Boulders—Hand
    Cup-stones—Neolithic Grindstones—Archæological Enigmas—Ancient
    Analogies,                                                       64

                               CHAPTER IV.
                         BONE AND SHELL WORKERS.
  Bone and Ivory Workers—Substitutes for Flint—Proofs of Relative
    Age—Domestic Bone Implements—Rude Palæolithic Art—Whalebone
    Workers—Primitive Working Tools—Fish-spears and
    Harpoons—Artistic Ingenuity—Drawing of the Mammoth—The
    Madelaine Etchings—Righthanded Workers—Deer-horn Quarry
    Picks—Bonebracer or Guard—Birthtime of the Fine Arts—Innuit
    Carvers of Alaska—Troglodytes of Central France—Post-Glacial
    Man—Symmetrical Head-Form—Intellectual Vigour—Evidence of
    Latent Powers—Tawatin Ivory Carving—Lake-Dwellers’
    Implements—Cave Implements—Arts of the Pacific Islanders—Carib
    Shell-Knives—Aborigines of the Antilles—Caribs of St.
    Domingo—Cave Pictures and Carvings—Prized Tropical
    Shells—Ancient Graves of Tennessee—Shell Manufactures—Huron and
    Petun Graves—Sacred Shell-Vessels—Primitive Shell
    Ornaments—American Shell Mounds—A Shell Currency—Ioqua Standard
    of Value,                                                        96

                               CHAPTER V.
                                  FIRE.
  The Fire-using Animal—Esquimaux use of Fire—Fuegian
    Fire-making—Modes of producing Fire—Australian Fire-myth—Men of
    the Mammoth Age—Hearths of the Cave-Men—Pacific Root-Word for
    Fire—Great Cycle of the Aztecs—Rekindling the Sacred
    Fire—Peruvian Sun-Worshippers—Sacrifice of the White Dog—Sacred
    Fires of the Mound-Builders—Indian Fire-making—Sanctity of
    Fire—Tierra del Fuego,                                          135

                               CHAPTER VI.
                               THE CANOE.
  The use of Tools—Tool-using Instinct—Rudimentary stage of
    Art—Primitive River-Craft—The Guanahanè Canoe—Ocean
    Navigation—African Canoe-making—Oregon Cedar Canoes—Native
    Whalers of the Pacific—Prehistoric Boat-Builders—Mawai’s
    Canoes—The Polynesian Archipelago—The Terra Australis
    Incognita—Canoe-Fleets of the Pacific—Primitive
    Navigation—Portable Boats—The Coracle and Kaiak—The Peruvian
    Balsa—Ocean Navigators,                                         151

                              CHAPTER VII.
                                 TOOLS.
  Man the Artificer—The Law of Reason—Indigenous Races—Man’s
    Capacity for Deterioration—What is a Stone Period?—Materials of
    Primitive Art—Succession of Races—Indications of Ancient
    Trade—The Shoshone Indian—Texas Implements—Modes of
    Hafting—Deer’s-horn Sockets—Stone Knives—Thlinkets of
    Alaska—Metals of a Stone Period—Arts of the South
    Pacific—Malayan Influence—Fijian Constructive Skill—Fijian
    Pottery—Slow Maturity of Races—The Flint-edged Sword—The League
    of the Five Nations—Iroquois Predominance—Work in Obsidian and
    Flint—Honduras Flint Implements—Sources of the
    Material—Collision of Races—Fate of Inferior Races,             170

                              CHAPTER VIII.
                               THE METALS.
  Dawn of a Metallurgic Era—Primitive Copper-Working—Copper Region
    of Lake Superior—The Pictured Rocks—Jackson Iron Mountain—The
    Cliff Mine—Copper Tools—Ancient Mining Trenches—Great extent of
    Works—Mines of Isle Royale—Their estimated Age—Ancient Mining
    Implements—Stone Mauls and Axes—Ontonagon Mining Relics—Sites
    of Copper Manufactories—Native Copper and Silver—Brockville
    Copper Implements—Lost Metallurgic Arts—Chemical
    Analyses—Native Terra-Cottas—Ancient British Mining Tools—The
    Race of the Copper Mines—Chippewa Superstitions—Earliest
    notices of the Copper Region—Ontonagon Mass of Copper—Ancient
    Native Traffic—Native use of Metals—Condition of the
    Mound-Builders—Mineral Resources—Antiquity of Copper
    Workings—Desertion of the Mines,                                198

                               CHAPTER IX.
                                 ALLOYS.
  The Age of Bronze—An intermediate Copper Age—European Copper
    Implements—Native Silver and Copper—Tin and Copper Ores—The
    Cassiterides—Ancient Sources of Tin—Arts of Yucatan—Alloyed
    Copper Axe-Blades—Bronze Silver-Mining Tool—Peruvian
    Bronzes—Primitive Mining Tools—Native Metallurgic
    Processes—Metallic Treasures of the Incas—Traces of an Older
    Race—Peruvian History—The Toltecs and Mexicans—Adjustment of
    Calendar—Barbarian Excesses—Native Goldsmith’s Work—Panama Gold
    Relics—Mexican Metallic Currency—Experimental Processes—Ancient
    European Bronzes—Tests of Civilisation—Ancient American
    Bronzes—The Native Metallurgist,                                229

                               CHAPTER X.
                           THE MOUND-BUILDERS.
  Earth Pyramids—Monuments of the Mound-Builders—Seats of Ancient
    Population—Different Classes of Works—Ancient
    Strongholds—Natural Sites—Fort Hill, Ohio—Iroquois
    Strongholds—Analogous Strongholds—Fortified Civic Sites—Sacred
    Enclosures—Newark Eagle Mound—Geometrical Earthworks—Plan of
    Newark Earthworks, Ohio—A Standard of Measurement—Diversity of
    Works—Evidence of Skill—The Cincinnati Tablet—Scales of
    Measurement—Traces of Extinct Rites,                            256

                               CHAPTER XI.
                           SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS.
  Sources of Information—Hill Mounds—The Scioto Mound—The Taylor
    Mound—The Issaquina Mound—The Elliot Mound—The Lockport
    Mound—Black Bird’s Grave—Scioto Valley Mounds—Symbolical
    Rites—Human Sacrifices—The Grave Creek Mound—Common
    Sepulchres—Cremation—Scioto Mound Cranium—Sacred Festivals,     277

                              CHAPTER XII.
                           SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS.
  Mound Altars—Altar Deposits—Quenching the Altar Fires—Mound
    Hearths—Mound City—Military Altar Mounds—Their Structure and
    Contents—Significance of their Deposits—Analogous Indian
    Rites—Transitional Civilisation,                                293

                              CHAPTER XIII.
                            SYMBOLIC MOUNDS.
  The Wisconsin Region—Animal Mounds—Symbolic Mounds—Big Elephant
    Mound—Dade County Mounds—Magnitude of Earthworks—Enclosed Works
    of Art—Rock River Works—The Northern Aztalan—Ancient Garden
    Beds—The Wisconsin Plains—A Sacred Neutral Land—The Alligator
    Mound—The Great Serpent, Ohio—Serpent Symbols—Intaglio
    Earthworks—Suggestive Inferences—The Ancient Race—A Sacerdotal
    Caste—Antiquity of the Race—Inferiority of the Indian Tribes,   303

                              CHAPTER XIV.
                      NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILISATION.
  The Toltecs—Ixtlilxochitl—The Aztecs—American
    Architecture—Aztalan—The Valley of Mexico—Montezuma’s
    Capital—Its Vanished Splendour—Mexican Calendar—The Calendar
    Stone—Mexican Deities—Toltec Civilisation—Race Elements—The
    Toltec Capital—Tezcucan Palaces—Their Modern
    Vestiges—Quetzalcoatl—The Pyramid of Cholula—The Sacred
    City—The Moqui Indians—The Holy City of Peru—Worship of the
    Sun—Astronomical Knowledge—Agriculture—The Llama—Woven
    Textures—Science and Art—Native Institutions—Metallurgy—Origin
    of the Mexicans—Mingling of Races,                              324

                               CHAPTER XV.
                            ART CHRONICLINGS.
  Imitative Skill—Archaic European Art—Conventional
    Ornamentation—Imitative Design—Analogies in Rites and
    Customs—Altar Records—Smelting the Ores—Wisconsin Prairie
    Lands—The Race of the Mounds—Mound Carvings—Portrait
    Sculptures—American Iconography—Deductions—Non-Indian
    Type—Other Examples—Antique Iconographic Art—Peculiar Imitative
    Skill—Animals represented—Extensive Geographical
    Relations—Knowledge of Tropical Fauna—Deductions—The Toucan and
    Manatee—Traces of Migration—Assumed Indications—Analogous
    Sculptures—Peruvian Imitative Skill—Carved Stone
    Mortars—Nicotian Religious Rites—Indian Legends—The Red
    Pipe-stone Quarry—The Leaping Rock—Mandan Traditions—Sioux
    Legend of the Peace Pipe—The Sacred Coca Plant—Knisteneaux
    Legend of the Deluge—Indications of Former Migrations—Favourite
    Material—Pwahguneka—Chimpseyan Customs—Chimpseyan Art—Babcen
    Carving—The Medicine Pipe-stem—Indian Expiatory
    Sacrifices—Nicotian Rites of Divination,                        355




                       I L L U S T R A T I O N S

          FIG.
               Portrait of Kaskatachyuh, A CHIMPSEYAH CHIEF.
            1. Flint-Knife, Grinell Leads,
            2. Lewiston Flint Implement,
            3. Flint Disc, Kent’s Cavern,
            4. Brixham Cave Flint Implement,
            5. Lanceolate Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio,
            6. Almond-shaped Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio,
            7. Leaf-shaped Flint, Sharon Valley, Ohio,
            8. Flint Implement, Licking County, Ohio,
            9. Flint Hoe, Kentucky,
           10. Flint Spear-head, Indiana,
           11. Flint Awl, Mayville, Kentucky,
           12. Flint Drill, Cincinnati,
           13. Stone Drill, Cincinnati,
           14. Flint-Knife, Cincinnati,
           15. Flint Razor, Kentucky,
           16. 17.Flint Scrapers, Ohio,
           18. Foliated Arrow-head,
           19. Lasso Stone, Kentucky,
           20. Cupped-stone, Ohio,
           21. Cupped Boulder, Tronton, Ohio,
           22. Bone Spatula, Keiss,
           23. Bone Comb, Burghar,
           24. Bone Comb, Burghar,
           25. Whale’s Vertebra Cup,
           26. to 30. Fish-spears and Harpoons,
           31. Harpoon, Kent’s Cavern,
           32. Bone Spear-head, Dordogne Caves,
           33. Fuegian Harpoon,
           34. Fish-spear, Kent’s Cavern,
           35. Fish-spear with bilateral barbs, La Madelaine,
           36. Fish-spear with unilateral barbs, La Madelaine,
           37. Carved Baton, or Mace, Dordogne Caves,
           38. The Mammoth, engraved on ivory, La Madelaine,
           39. Scottish Stone Bracer,
           40. Hunter’s Tally, Deer’s-horn, Cro-Magnon,
           41. Skull of Old Man of Cro-Magnon—Profile,
           42. Skull of Old Man of Cro-Magnon—Front View,
           43. Skull of Old Man of Cro-Magnon—Vertical View,
           44. Tawatin Ivory Carving of Whale,
           45. Tawatin Ivory Carving,
           46. Hog’s Tooth Chisel, Concise,
           47. British Bone Implements,
           48. Carib Shell-Knives,
           49. Tennessee Idol,
           50. Clyde Stone Axe,
           51. Clalam Stone Adze,
           52. Grangemouth Skull,
           53. Texas Stone Axe, hafted,
           54. Texas Flint Implement,
           55. Chisel and deer’s-horn socket, Concise,
           56. Stone Knife, Concise,
           57. South Pacific Stone Implements,
           58. Stone Adze, New Caledonia,
           59. Fijian Pottery,
           60. Honduras serrated Flint Implement,
           61. Honduras State Halberd, flint,
           62. Honduras Flint Implement,
           63. Miners’ Shovels, Lake Superior,
           64. Miners’ Stone Mauls,
           65. Ontonagon Copper Implement,
           66. 67. Brockville Copper Dagger and Gouge,
           68. Brockville Copper Spear,
           69. Terra-cotta Mask,
           70. Newark Earthworks, Ohio,
           71. Cincinnati Tablet,
           72. Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio,
           73. Lake Washington Disk,
           74. Mask, Mexican Calendar Stone,
           75. Ticul Hieroglyphic Vase,
           76. Peruvian Web,
           77. Portrait Mound Pipe, full face,
           78. Portrait Mound Pipe, profile,
           79. Portrait Mound Pipe,
           80. Manatee, Pipe-Sculpture,
           81. Toucan, Pipe-Sculpture,
           82. Peruvian Black Ware,
           83. Peruvian Stone Mortars,
           84. Chippewa Pipe,
           85. Babeen Pipe,
           86. Babeen Pipe-Sculpture.




                               CHAPTER I.
                             INTRODUCTION.


   THE INFLUENCE OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA—THE OLD WORLD AND THE
     NEW—AMERICAN PHASES OF LIFE—THE TERM PREHISTORIC—INFLUENCE OF
     MIGRATIONS—WHAT IS CIVILISATION?—DOMESTICATION—INDIAN
     PHILOSOPHY—ABORIGINES—THE TARTAR—THE ARAB—LANGUAGES OF
     AMERICA—WANDERINGS OF THE NATIONS—FOSSIL MAN—OCCUPATION OF
     THE NEW WORLD.

The recent development of archæology as a science is due in no slight
degree to the simplicity which characterises the prehistoric disclosures
of Scandinavia, Ireland, and other regions of Europe lying beyond the
range of Greek and Roman influence. But the same element presents itself
on a far more comprehensive scale alike in the archæology and the
ethnology of the western hemisphere. America may be assumed with little
hesitation to have begun its human period subsequent to that of the old
world, and to have started later in the race of civilisation. At any
rate it admits of no question that its most civilised nations had made a
very partial advancement when, in the fifteenth century, they were
abruptly brought into contact with the matured civilisation of Europe.
Hence the earlier stages of human progress can be tested there freed
from many obscuring elements inevitable from the intermingling of
essentially diverse phases of civilisation on old historic areas. In the
days of Herodotus, Transalpine Europe was a greater mystery to the
nations on the shores of the Mediterranean than Central Africa is to us.
To the Romans of four centuries later, Britain was still almost another
world; and the great northern hive from whence the spoilers of the
dismembered empire of the Cæsars were speedily to emerge, was so
entirely unknown to them, that, as Dr. Arnold remarks, “The Roman
colonies along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube looked out on the
country beyond those rivers as we look up at the stars, and actually see
with our eyes a world of which we know nothing.” Nevertheless, the
civilisation of the historic centres around the Mediterranean was not
without some influence on the germs of modern nations then nursing the
hardihood of a vigorous infancy beyond the Danube and the Baltic. The
shores of the Atlantic and German oceans, and the islands of the British
seas, had long before yielded tribute to the Phœnician mariner; and as
the archæologist and the ethnologist pursue their researches, and
restore to light memorials of Europe’s early youth, they are startled
with affinities to the ancient historic nations, in language, arts, and
rites, no less than by the recovered traces of an unfamiliar past.

But it is altogether different with the New World which Columbus
revealed. Superficial students of its monuments have indeed
misinterpreted characteristics pertaining to the infantile instincts
common to human thought, into fancied analogies with the arts of Egypt;
and more than one ingenious philosopher has traced out affinities with
the mythology and astronomical science of the ancient East; but the
western continent still stands a world apart, with a peculiar people,
and with languages, arts, and customs essentially its own. To whatever
source the American nations may be traced, they had remained shut in for
unnumbered centuries by ocean barriers from all the influences of the
historic hemisphere. Yet there the first European explorers found man so
little dissimilar to all with which they were already familiar, that the
name of Indian originated in the belief, retained by the great
cosmographer to the last, that the American continent was no new world,
but only the eastern confines of Asia.

Such, then, is a continent where man may be studied under circumstances
which seem to furnish the best guarantee of his independent development.
No reflex light of Grecian or Roman civilisation has guided him on his
way. The great sources of religious and moral suasion which have given
form to medieval and modern Europe, and so largely influenced the polity
and culture of Asia, and even of Africa, were effectually excluded; and
however prolonged the period of occupation of the western hemisphere by
its own American nations may have been, man is still seen there in a
condition which seems to reproduce some of the most familiar phases
ascribed to the infancy of the unhistoric world. The records of its
childhood are not obscured, as in Europe, by later chroniclings; where,
in every attempt to decipher the traces of an earlier history, we have
to spell out a nearly obliterated palimpsest. Amid the simplicity of its
palæography, the aphorism, by which alone the Roman could claim to be
among the world’s ancient races acquires a new force: “antiquitas
seculi, juventus mundi.”

The discovery of America was itself one of the great events in the most
memorable era of the world’s progress. It wrought a marvellous change in
the ideas and opinions of mankind relative to the planet they occupy,
and prepared the way for many subsequent revolutions in thought, as well
as in action. The world as the arena of human history was thenceforth
divided into the Old and the New. In the one hemisphere tradition and
myth reach backward towards a dawn of undefined antiquity; in the other,
history has a definite and altogether modern beginning. Nevertheless no
great research is needed to show that it also has been the theatre of
human life, and of many revolutions of nations, through centuries
reaching back towards an antiquity as vague as that which lies behind
Europe’s historic dawn; and the study alike of the prehistoric and the
unhistoric races of America is replete with promise of novel truths in
reference to primeval man. Some of the oldest problems in relation to
him find their solution there; and, amid the novel inquiries which now
perplex the student of science, answers of unexpected value are rendered
from the same source.

The study of man’s condition and progress in Europe’s prehistoric
centuries reveals him as a savage hunter, armed solely with weapons of
flint and bone, frequenting the lake and river margins of a continent
clothed in primeval forests and haunted by enormous beasts of prey.
Displaced by intrusive migrations, this rude pioneer disappears, and his
traces are overlaid or erased by the improved arts of his supplanters.
The infancy of the historic nations begins. Metallurgy, architecture,
science, and letters follow, effacing the faint records of Europe’s
nomadic pioneers; and the first traces of late intruders acquire so
primitive an aspect, that the existence of older European nations than
the Celtæ seemed till recently too extravagant an idea for serious
consideration.

After devoting considerable research to the recovery of the traces of
early arts in Britain, and realising from many primitive disclosures
some clear conception of the barbarian of Europe’s prehistoric dawn, it
has been my fortune to become a settler on the American continent, in
the midst of scenes where the primeval forests and their savage
occupants are in process of displacement by the arts and races of
civilised Europe. Peculiarly favourable opportunities have helped to
facilitate the study of this phase of the New World, thus seen in one of
its great transitional eras: with its native tribes, and its European
and African colonists in various stages of mutation, consequent on
migration, intermixture, or collision. In observing the novel aspects of
life resulting from such a condition of things, I have been impressed
with the conviction that many of the ethnological phenomena of Europe’s
prehistoric centuries are here reproduced on the grandest scale. Man is
seen subject to influences similar to those which have affected him in
all great migrations and collisions of diverse races. Here also is the
savage in direct contact with civilisation, and exposed to the same
causes by means of which the wild fauna disappear. Some difficult
problems of ethnology have been simplified to my own mind; and opinions
relative to Europe’s prehistoric races, based on inference or induction,
have received striking confirmation. Encouraged by this experience, I
venture to set forth the results of an inquiry into the essential
characteristics of man, based chiefly on a comparison of the theoretical
ethnology of primitive Europe, with such disclosures of the New World.

Man may be assumed to be prehistoric wherever his chroniclings of
himself are undesigned, and his history is wholly recoverable by
induction. The term has, strictly speaking, no chronological
significance; but, in its relative application, corresponds to other
archæological, in contradistinction to geological, periods. There are
modern as well as ancient prehistoric races; and both are available for
solving the problem of man’s true natural condition. But also the
relation of man to external nature as the occupant of specific
geographical areas, and subject to certain influences of climate, food,
material appliances and conditions of life, involves conclusions of
growing importance, in view of many novel questions to which the
enlarged inquiry as to his true place in nature has given rise. If races
of men are indigenous to specific areas, and controlled by the same laws
which seem to regulate the geographical distribution of the animal
kingdom, the results of their infringement of such laws have been
subjected to the most comprehensive tests since the discovery of
America. The horse transported to the New World roams in magnificent
herds over the boundless pampas; and the hog, restored to a state of
nature, has exchanged the degradation of the stye for the fierce courage
of the wild boar. There also the indigenous man of the prairie and the
forest can still be seen unaffected by native or intruded civilisation;
while the most civilised races of Europe have been brought into contact
with the African savage; and both have been subjected to all the novel
influences in which the western continent contrasts no less strikingly
with the temperate than with the tropical regions of the eastern
hemisphere. The resultant changes have been great, and the scale on
which they have been wrought out is so ample as to stamp whatever
conclusions can be legitimately deduced from them with the highest
interest and value.

The consequences following from changes of area and climate play a
remarkable part in the history of man, and have no analogies in the
migrations of the lower animals. The Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and the
Norman; the Hungarian, the Saracen, and the Turk: are all to a great
extent products of the transplanting of seemingly indigenous races to
more favouring localities; but the change to all of them was less than
that to which the colonists of the New World have been subjected. There
the old process was reversed; and the offspring of Europe’s highest
civilisation, abruptly transferred to the virgin forest and steppes of
the American wilderness, was left amid the widening inheritance of new
clearings to develop whatever tendencies lay dormant in the artificial
European man.

Here then are materials full of promise for the ethnical student:—the
Red-Man, indigenous, seemingly aboriginal, and still in what it is
customary to call a state of nature; the <DW64>, with many African
attributes uneffaced, systematically precluded until very recent years
from the free reception of the civilisation with which he has been
brought in contact, but subjected nevertheless to novel influences of
climate, food, and all external appliances; the White-Man also
undergoing the transforming effects of climate, amid novel social and
political institutions; and all three extreme types of variety or race
testing, on a sufficiently comprehensive scale, their capacity for a
fertile intermingling of blood. The period, moreover, is in some
respects favourable for summing up results, as changes are at work which
mark the close of a cycle in the novel conditions to which one at least
of the intruded races has been subjected for upwards of three centuries.

In Europe we study man only as he has been moulded by a thousand
external circumstances. The arts, born at the very dawn of history, give
form to its modern social life. The faith and morals nurtured among the
hills of Judah, the intellect of Greece, the jurisprudence and military
prowess of Rome, and the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of
medieval Christendom, have all helped to make of us what we are: till in
the European of the nineteenth century it becomes a curious question how
much pertains to the man, and how much to that civilisation, of which