Naturally, the Conclusions to “The Stone Age” are somewhat long, and while I have embodied them all under two chapters, yet they have been grouped under subdivisions, as will be observed by readers.

THE POPULATION IN PREHISTORIC TIMES

We should first consider a subject which has been given, it would seem, scant attention. I refer to the fact that generally throughout the American continent are unmistakable evidences of a considerable population in ancient times. At present there are about three hundred and sixty thousand Indians in the United States and Canada. Perhaps more than half of these show the effects of marriage with whites or negroes. The population of to-day is no criterion of that in ancient times. In studying field evidence of population, we must bear in mind that the Indian of both periods made use of perishable materials. This is an essential fact to be noted during the course of our studies. Much that both the historic and prehistoric Indian made use of was composed of cloth, iron, wood, brass, leather, etc. It is quite true that the wood, leather, cloth, etc., of prehistoric times would disappear, but the stone, bone, shell, clay, and copper objects remained. Iron rusts quickly, and the use of iron was widespread from the time of the settlement on the New England coast (1620) down to the present. A great deal of iron was introduced by De Soto in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas; and by Coronado in the Southwest. Both of these expeditions were in the years 1540–1543, and on them hundreds of Spaniards penetrated into the interior carrying thousands of objects, chiefly of iron. All of this must have had an effect on the natives throughout a considerable portion of North America.

I have elsewhere referred to the difference between historic and modern sites, but the subject is important and has been, it seems to me, passed over or not appreciated by others, and it is necessary to emphasize the difference between the ancient and the modern again. The significant fact is that all of this iron has disappeared leaving here and there a streak of rust, and that upon the modern sites were left quantities of glass beads and other objects that are not perishable. These were in use among the natives, yet few of these things remain; the only exception being noted in the sites of the Iroquois of western New York, where the modern artifacts predominate.

In previous articles I have called attention to the fact that on the four or five Shawano sites in the State of Ohio, there were large bodies of Indians assembled during the period embraced between (roughly) 1700 and 1812. These Indians helped to make American history. They were fairly numerous, of unquestioned ability, and produced such men as Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet. Their leaders, Tecumseh and Cornstalk, were engaged in twenty-two actions with our troops; numerous traders were among them, and they sent many expeditions against the frontiers. Yet, if one walks over these populous sites of historic times, one finds practically nothing save here and there a glass bead or a broken tomahawk.

In any one of perhaps two or three hundred places where prehistoric villages occurred, an observer may find great quantities of chips, spawls, broken implements, broken pottery, etc. The needs of ancient man were few, his implements simple and confined to the types illustrated in this work. Therefore, the presence of the unnumbered evidences of human residence indicates either a great length of occupation, or large numbers of Indians for a short period of time.

I never believed that the population in America exceeded one million (north of Mexico) at any time, assuming that the field evidence is against the statement so often made that there are as many Indians in America to-day as at the time of the discovery.

If the Ohio Valley had been occupied by mound-building people when La Salle and Hennepin made their voyages of discovery, these worthy and zealous explorers would have made reference to it in their reports. But La Salle and Hennepin heard of the great Illinois towns on the river of the same name in that state and journeyed from Quebec to visit those towns. There were thousands of Indians living in the Illinois country, but Ohio appears to have had little population—that is of Indians, and none whatsoever of mound-building people.

Between Aurora and Lawrenceburg, Indiana, if the Ohio River has not during a recent flood covered the bottoms with silt, there may be seen a village-site nearly three miles in extent. I visited it in 1898 and collected upwards of three thousand specimens from the surface in a week’s time.

The Indian population was most numerous on that great artery, the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Perhaps we have not fully recognized the importance played by this “Father of Waters” in prehistoric times. Throughout the Mississippi Valley are several climates varying from extreme cold in northern Minnesota to the semi-tropical of Louisiana; from the aridity of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the salubrious climate of Tennessee; from the cold of the extreme Northwest to that of Pennsylvania. The Mississippi Valley comprises altitude and sea level, mountains and plains, every kind of soil and every specimen of plant and animal life found in North America above the City of Mexico.

It would appear that man had penetrated to the heads of every stream tributary to the Mississippi. Through the Colorado basin, throughout the length and breadth of all the Southern rivers; to the rivers of New England, the great St. Lawrence basin, and the Red River of the North, and even far Yukon in Alaska,—these primitive stone-age people carried their simple arts and established their villages. In the Cumberland and Tennessee valleys such multitudes of them lived that even after a hundred years of ruthless destruction of the stone grave cemeteries, there still remain thousands of unopened sepulchres.

Apropos of these stone graves, General Gates P. Thruston, of Nashville, who has studied ancient man in Tennessee more than forty years, reports by letter to me as follows: “I think that there must have been forty thousand graves within twenty-five miles of Nashville. I should think there were probably at one time as many as one hundred thousand prehistoric inhabitants in the two valleys. The village-sites and cemeteries cannot be numbered.”

The officials at Washington have underestimated, it seems to me, the number of Indians in the United States, because they have recorded the Indian of the historic period rather than the Indian of the past. De Soto and Coronado both reported continuous population throughout the regions traversed by them. Yet shortly after the year 1700 small-pox, measles, cholera, and other diseases destroyed entire tribes. Untold thousands of our Indians perished during these epidemics. The case of the Mandans is well known. The early colonists made frequent reference to the spread of these plagues throughout the country.

Fourteen years ago I compiled an archæologic map for the State of Ohio; the last entry being made in 1897. At that time there were 3292 various monuments and village-sites recorded. Since then Professor Mills has continued the work and added to the total. Constant travel over the State of Ohio in the past years leads me to believe that there were in ancient times at least twenty thousand monuments great and small in that state.

All considered, the population in North America in pre-Columbian times must have been considerable during two or three thousand years, if not for a longer period.

THE STONE AGE IN HISTORIC TIMES

It is unfortunate that Coronado, De Soto, Captain Smith, Hennepin, Marquette, and the Pilgrim Fathers did not give us more detail about stone-age times. When these explorers, or adventurers, or colonists came here, many of the Indians were still in the stone age. One of the best references that I have seen is that by Coronado’s historian, who states that in the mountain region along the Colorado River there lived many wild tribes who were barbarous; “eat human flesh, worship painted and sculptured stones, and are much given to witchcraft and sorcery.” These men represented savage and not barbaric stone-age times. They appear to have been exceedingly fleet of foot, great hunters, very courageous, and quite different from later Indians. The historian, speaking of one of these tribes, says:

“The third language is that of the Acaxes, who are in possession of a large part of the hilly country and all of the mountains. They go hunting for men just as they hunt animals. They all eat human flesh, and he who has the most human bones and skulls hung up around his house is most feared and respected. They live in settlements and in very rough country, avoiding the plains. In passing from one settlement to another, there is always a ravine in the way which they cannot cross, although they can talk together across it. At the slightest call five hundred men collect, and on any pretext kill and eat one another. Thus it has been very hard to subdue these people, on account of the roughness of the country, which is very great.”

It has been known for many years that the Seri Indians living on an island in the Gulf of California are still in the stone age. Professor W J McGee, of the Bureau of Ethnology, visited these Indians and wrote a long report concerning them.^[32] This book should be read by students, as it gives an insight into what prehistoric times must have been. McGee states a number of interesting facts which I repeat, with some changes, in condensed form.

The Seris are bitterly opposed to foreigners, and he considers “their race sense is perhaps the strongest ever known.” This is due to their living alone and apart on this small island away from other tribes. They had bitter experiences with the cruel Spaniards nearly three centuries ago, which was a contributing factor in bringing about this condition. They use shells, with which the sea-front abounds, for knives, cups, dishes, dippers, and other utensils.

The natural, water-worn pebbles need no chipping or fashioning to make of them hammers and crushers. Occasionally some of these implements exhibit a little work to bring them into better shape. The seacoast abounded in thousands of water-worn stone objects, of such forms as made them convenient for use by the Seri Indians.

Practically no chipped implements occurred. McGee searched patiently but found only two, both of which were arrow-points. The water-worn stones were used in the hand and not hafted, the aim serving as the handle. “The Seri are wonderfully quick in using these stones”—the motions being faster than if one held the end of the handle in which the stone was fashioned. The social organization of these people is very peculiar. The oldest women are matrons who seem to dominate each community. In the case of the best-looking young woman of the tribe, who would not be photographed, the matron commanded that she permit a picture to be taken, and she, who had strenuously objected, at once consented. When any of these people marry with aliens, they are outlawed or driven away from the other Seri.

The graves of the Seri are simple pits in which the body is placed with accompaniment of objects belonging to the deceased in life. If such burials—near the surface—were made in very ancient times in more moist or humid climates, it is certain that all bone and other perishable objects would have disappeared and only the stone things remained. We would then be unable to determine that a grave once there existed, and it is possible—I do not say probable—that such graves may have been made in times of extreme antiquity in the North or South, and that all of the softer substances and bones have disappeared. In that event, these graves of an early culture would not appear to us as graves, but as a small cache of rude implements.

Aside from these two references I have found a few others, but because of limited space, I am unable to present them here.

Dr. Charles Peabody kindly furnished me with an interesting statement regarding the use of the bicaves or discoidals, which is herewith submitted:—

“At the Village of the Houmas. There are eighty cabins, and in the middle of the village a fine level square, where from morning to night there are young men who exercise themselves in running after a flat stone which they throw in the air from one end of the square to the other, and which they try to have fall on two cylinders that they roll where they think that the stone will fall.”^[33]

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA

We should consider quite briefly this subject. As was remarked on pages 32–4, man may have occupied America in times of great antiquity. Personally, I cannot understand how all the different Indian dialects developed in comparatively recent times. It would seem that several thousand years at least were required for so many and diversified tongues to have developed among our aborigines.

Not being a geologist, it would be presumptuous for me to pass opinion on questions in which geology played prominent part. What little is offered, therefore, is based upon study of man’s handiwork and distribution of his implements rather than upon geologic evidence. There has been not a little said concerning the observations of Mr. Ernest Volk and Dr. Charles C. Abbott in New Jersey, as both of these men have labored for many years near Trenton, upon fields and in the sands and gravels. Recently Dr. Abbott published three pamphlets.^[34] There are some personalities in these pamphlets which might have been omitted, and one or two statements to which some persons might object. But on the whole these three pamphlets sum up all of Dr. Abbott’s observations during the past thirty years, with reference to New Jersey archæology and the antiquity of man in the Delaware Valley.

Waiving these minor considerations, which no broad-minded man would treasure up against Dr. Abbott, we may safely assume that both he and Mr. Volk are real archæologists. That is, they understand conditions as they existed in ancient times, and that is something that few men of to-day grasp. It cannot be learned from reading the reports, from studying in museums, or through obtaining a degree from one of our universities. Both Volk and Abbott have worked hard. There was no fuss made about it. It was a continuous grind day after day, week in and week out, year upon year.

No man can dig a pit in the ground and fill it up so that it conforms to the surrounding natural strata. Such a place always shows disturbed soil or clay. Walk along the riverbank, where the water has washed out a line of fence and left the marks of the post-holes, and observe; note gravel-banks anywhere in this country where aborigines buried in graves, and as white men haul away the gravel and expose the bank, one is able to see clearly defined the outlines of the graves. The same is true of the holes of burrowing animals and of tree-roots, etc. The beds of streams mentioned by Dr. Abbott in his work play an important part in archæology. When the implements found in them were lost, the streams were active. Since then they have filled up. The character of one deposit in the Delaware Valley investigated by Abbott and Volk differs from that of another, and the differences are so striking, the deposits being in the one place sand, and in another place glacial clay, in another place river gravel, that one cannot but believe that a considerable period of time elapsed between these various cultures.

In many sections of the country are found not only chipped implements, but other implements heavily coated with patina, which is an incrustation accruing by time alone. There are other worn specimens which appear very old. Select some of these and compare them with objects from the Mandan or Iroquois sites, or even from the mounds in the Ohio Valley, and one will observe the apparent difference in the age of these specimens. The Mandan pottery and some of the Iroquois pottery are even at this late date coated with soot. There is no soot on the mound pottery. Along the Atlantic Coast, and in the South, flint implements are sometimes coated with patina. In Florida shell heaps are occasionally found skeletons at great depth. Mr. Clarence B. Moore considered the lower strata of the larger shell heaps to be very old.

There was a skull found by Dr. Wyman during the course of his exploration many years ago in the base of a shell mound in Florida.^[35] I present a picture of it in Fig. 717. The cranium is heavily incrusted by cemented shells. Such a burial must be of great age.

These shell heaps accumulate very slowly during the occupancy of the sites by many generations of Indians. This skull, and the skull found at Lansing, Kansas, at a depth of twenty-five or thirty feet, and other finds, are evidences of considerable antiquity. Dr. Hrdlička has said that the Lansing man was of the same type as the modern Indian. This does not mean that it is modern, for Assyrian and Egyptian crania five or more thousand years old have been taken from the tombs, and it would require experts to distinguish them from crania of living people.

Prof. Edward H. Williams, Jr., of Woodstock, Vt., suggested to me that an expert analysis be made of the surface of certain problematic forms and ornaments finished and unfinished. Therefore, I gave to Prof. Williams some forty objects from our Andover collection, and he made a careful examination, as did his friend Prof. John D. Irving of Lehigh University, who is secretary of the Geological Society of America, and an expert in such matters. Some of these specimens are found to be old, a few very old, and others more or less recent. I shall quote a few of his observations. The numbers refer to catalogue numbers in our books:—

“22517—From Georgia. This is a fine-grained diabase. Prof. Irving reports that the ophitic structure is very well marked. This object has been buried for some time, and the surface is weathered, and has been pitted since it was worked.

“23449—Syenitic Gneiss. The feldspar had begun to kaolinize before the pebble was worked. Since working the surface has been considerably etched, and the hornblende is left rising above the surface. This black mineral has also been decomposed since working, and the iron component has rusted and stained the horn.

“34772—Extremely fine-grained muscovite schist with grains of magnetite. This was weathered before working, and the magnetite has almost wholly rotted to soft dark spots. There was some etching of the surface since working.

“4137—Foliated greenish talc. The lighter pits and scratches are recent. The surface is darker than the fresh fracture, and shows age and handling.

“18414—This is a much decomposed rock of the trap variety, which has become so weathered and softened that it has become almost entirely chlorite. It looks very much like an argillite. It belongs to one of the ‘greenstone’ rocks.”

As to the exact number of years required for this weathering, it is impossible to state, but since these specimens were considered from a geological and mineralogical point of view, and critically analyzed by two entirely competent men, it is safe to assume that a few hundred years would not account for the disintegration. I do not know whether these things are a few hundred or several thousand years old, but the analysis shows that the stone weathered to some considerable extent, and this would be indication of age. It would be interesting to analyze some of the Iroquois objects and to compare.

The different cultures in America would appear to be evidence of the antiquity of man. One cannot imagine that the Cliff-Dwellers and mound-building tribes, that the stone-grave people, or the cave people in the Ozarks, or the shell-heap people of Florida, or the Plains tribes, and finally, the woods and mountain Indians, who never made any monuments of any description—that all these cultures developed in a few hundred years. They are so totally different, and are so influenced and modified by climate and local conditions, that it would appear plausible that several thousand years must have elapsed before these sharp lines of distinction developed. Again, while all Indians have skins more or less red, the variation in physical appearance among our aborigines is surprising. No one could fail to distinguish an Ojibwa from an Iroquois, or a Sioux from an Apache, or an Osage from a Seminole, even if one had no knowledge of Indian language or customs. Environment and habitat must have influenced these tribes and affected their stature and physical conditions.

ADAPTATION TO CONDITIONS

Among our American aborigines one trait stands out prominently, and that is the art of adapting themselves to existing and local conditions and environments. Perhaps no race so readily appreciated that it must depend entirely upon its own resources. We find, therefore, that it is immaterial whether the native Americans live in Maine or in Florida, in North Dakota, or Texas; they selected the most available materials. If the stone was easily chipped or of such consistency that it could be made use of, they adopted that stone for certain implements. If the stone was refractory and not easily chipped or worked, they did the best that they could with it. Therefore it is not always a criterion of poor workmanship nor does it indicate low degree of culture if the implements are crude and roughly and imperfectly made. It even means that there is no good material at hand and that the Indians selected the best they were able to secure and worked it out as well as they were able. Again, in certain sections implements made of good material are to be found, also of poor, coarse, local materials. Frequently the good material was transported from a distance. It may have come through trade or by means of conquest. That is immaterial. The point is that the natives naturally preferred materials more easily worked, but that they were not always able to obtain them. It is quite likely that few of the tribes were friendly in prehistoric times. The natives of a given river valley may have desired the better material to be found two or three hundred miles distant from their habitat, but because of the hostility of the nation living in that section where better material could be obtained, they were unable by either trade or conquest to obtain it, and had to be content with such unsatisfactory chert or other stone as occurred in their immediate locality. I think that this factor entered largely into prehistoric life.

But if no suitable stone could be obtained, the Indians made use of bone or other substances. In several references to the Mandan village-sites in this work, the point was made that the Mandans used the large bones of the buffalo for a multitude of purposes. This was because suitable stone was scarce, and for the further reason that the bones were more easily worked and shaped than stone. In certain sections of the Mississippi Valley where materials of all kinds were in abundance many varieties of stone, shell, etc., were employed.

The readiness with which the native adapted himself to conditions is shown in the house structure of the Indians. Those of cold climates lived in very different structures from those of the South. And the Plains Indians employed skin coverings, whereas the woods Indians made use of bark or of logs, and the Pacific Coast Indians used quantities of hewn boards.

This is an interesting subject, and could be followed at considerable length did space permit.

ART IN ANCIENT TIMES AND MODERN ART

Too much has been made of the presence of stone and bone tools among modern tribes. While there have been numerous instances of such clinging to old forms, yet students of modern Indian life, by their constant reference to these recurrences, have given a wrong impression to the world.

It is generally known and accepted that art passes through periods of transition. As an example one might cite the Renaissance. No student of art would confuse the Renaissance with an earlier or later period. Examples of earlier art still persisting during the early Renaissance are in evidence. But as the influence of the Renaissance broadened, all art of that period was affected, or leavened by it, and presently practically all art was Renaissance.

This is precisely true of Indian art. We search diligently to find an old, really old Navajo blanket to-day, and we pay a fabulous price for it. Likewise we search—but in vain—for old wooden bowls, painted buffalo robes, and feather mantles. The utmost corners of remote South America are visited by explorers from Harvard, the American Museum, and Berlin and London museums. Why? To discover primitive man untouched by civilization in order to record his arts and folk-lore, religion, and daily life, undefiled by contact with our civilization. Is it found? Scarcely an example remains—all is tinged and influenced even as the Renaissance changed the preRenaissance. If one will reflect a moment, one will agree that this is all true.

Examples of sculptures in stone, carving of shell, effigies in copper, ceramic art in the Cliff-Dweller country are in our leading museums. I would recommend readers to go to these museums and compare that real art with the wretched examples in vogue among the Indians at the present time.

I have said so much regarding ancient arts in various places in this book that now I wish to speak more particularly regarding certain tribes of Indians, among whom I spent the spring and summer of the year 1909, and contrast their art with stone-age art.

In March, 1909, I was sent by the Department of the Interior to investigate the condition of the Ojibwa Indians. I returned several weeks later and was again sent out the first of July and remained on the White Earth Reservation until in October. Because our work was to establish who were the full bloods, we came in contact with all the Indians of the Ojibwa tribe who claim to have no white or negro blood in their veins.

Among our eighteen or twenty witnesses, who were chiefs and persons ranging from seventy to eighty-five years of age, and who were familiar with the history of the Ojibwa, with the parents and grandparents of those whom we established to be full bloods, were several members of the grand medicine society, the Midiwewin. These persons were frequently examined by me through our interpreters—all of whom were the most competent we were able to procure and the best on the reservation—as to the past history of the Ojibwa tribe. The old record-keeper, commonly called Daydodge, but whose real name is Bay-bah-dwung-gay-aush, aged eighty-two, had a remarkable memory. To him had been related all the Hiawatha traditions by the Indians, and he was able to carry back history about one hundred and twenty years. This man told me that there were few, if any, stone implements in use among his people when he was a boy, and he did not think that stone objects were in use to any extent when his grandparents were children. He said that occasionally a woman hafted a stone celt and used it in scraping or cutting, that some stone mallets were to be found when his grandparents were young, but he thought that the French and English traders’ goods had displaced all stone articles in use among the Ojibwa.