Naturalists have ascertained that the fauna and flora of the West Indies were derived from South America, and perhaps this indicates that at some remote period this archipelago formed an integral part of the south ern continent. Ethnological and linguistic investigations show that the human population of the islands followed on the tracks of the other organic forms, and migrated from the mainland at the south. At the time of the Discovery the natives of every island of the group were affined solely to the tribes of the southern shore of the Caribbean Sea. They were partly connected with the tribe from which that sea derived its name, the redoubtable Caribs, partly with the more peaceful Arawacks of Guiana. For these reasons the Archao]ogy of the West Indies forms part of that of South America.
The whole of this latter continent, outside of the Andean area which we have just considered, was at the period of the Discovery, and for all time anterior to that since it had been peopled at all, in the possession of tribes far inferior in culture to the Peruvians. No relics comparable to
those in the Andean valleys have been discovered in the Pampas of the south, in the vast watersheds of the Amazon and the Orinoco, or in the forests of Guiana.
On the other hand, the northern coast, and especially the West India Islands, do not offer any traces of those rude and characteristic imple ments which denote the presence of man in the Paleolithic Age, although such relics have been diligently sought by earnest investigators. The inference is that those portions had no unman population until man had reached the Neolithic Period of his development. We have already seen (p. 66) that in the plains of the Pampas a race of men were contending with the rigors of the Ice Age at a time when many animals now extinct were their companions.
As the art of the whole of the vast region included in the area we are describing offers no great disparity, we shall consider it under one heading.