What is included in the term Paleolithic is still a subject of debate. The name, as origi nally applied by Lubbock (Lord Avebury) to the large almond-shaped artifacts of ancient gravel deposits, has been extended until it in cludes more specialized forms of artifacts and, as a whole, indicates that man at that time and under those conditions was not as bestial as some groups of man, not yet, or but recently, extinct.
Our knowledge of man's career on earth, ab initio, is too fragmentary to speak in posi tive terms as to the progress any group made before its disappearance, for there is no in stance of a people continuing from late tertiary time to the present in any one locality. Oc cupation, abandonment and reoccupation was the rule, and hence it follows that no worked instance has been brought to light of a strictly palnolithic people gradually becoming neo lithic in culture. The more specialized status replaced the less advanced, and two peoples, not one, appear in the change. That the North American Indian emerged from a pabeolithic to a neolithic stage is a natural inference, as we have no geological conditions as in Europe to guide us in determining relative antiquity of this or that area and its artifacts, but so dis tinct are the conditions thit separate one de posit of sand, gravel and clay from another, and so characteristic are the artifacts of those different deposits, it is logical to assume that one period of occupation ceased before a suc ceeding one began. Were we dealing with stratified rock, there would be no confusion; no question could arise, and the determination of actual conditions could, in the case of sands, be accomplished by excavations on so great a scale that demonstration could be had by virtue of numbers of artifacts found and circumstance of occurrence recorded. This has now been done and not only has the antiquity of man in North America been fully established, but the incoming and vanishing of one or more peo ples occurred prior to the final possessing of the land by the historic Indian.
The Neolithic Age is the evident begin ning of modern life, made possible by improved working tools. The remains of this period are not buried under geologic deposits, but lie on or near the surface. Recent finds in Florida
of apparently neolithic culture have occurred at such depth and under such geological con ditions as to indicate a greater antiquity of Neolithic Man in North America than had been held. They are no longer merely ham mered or chipped, but rubbed or ground to shape, giving a sharper edge and a smoother surface. There is a gradual advance in the best specimens to weapons and tools almost equal to metal, such as lance heads, arrow heads, knives, daggers, awls, chisels and axes of razor-like sharpness and needle points, serv iceable for and accompanied by highly devel oped arts and manufactures, agriculture and navigation, of remarkable magnitude and va riety. As timber could now be easily cut, men built large wooden dwellings and rowing gal teys. Early in the period we find immense earthworks both for defense and for burial; later, in the cities, brick architecture and fine engineering. The lake dwellings of central Eu rope and England belong to this period, and, being built on piles over the water, combined security against wild beast and animals with easy fishing, a fashion that spread widely and no doubt rapidly: indeed, some of them with their neolithic inhabitants lasted into historic times. From these discoveries it is evident that man not only hunted and fished, but raised grain, vines, fruit and flax, breeding domestic animals to draw the plow, another immense gain to agriculture; spun and wove; made pot tery, and not only ornamented that but his tools as well, shaping them for beauty as well as use, thus showing development of aesthetic taste. Still more important was the social de velopment. The large camps indicate a settled tribal society, the careful selection of material from considerable depths indicates combined labor in mining.
Between this and the Bronze Age there ex isted in some countries what is called by some archaeologists a Copper Age, where native cop per was hardened with oxide of arsenic; but as it did not drive out flint tools, but only supple mented them, it is hardly entitled to be called an epoch, and is not accompanied by any iden tifiable advance in general progress consequent upon it, like the others.