PREHISTORIC ARCHEOLOGY OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE The nomenclature of the Arclueology of the Western Hemisphere is closely similar to that of the Eastern. In each the development of the human race ran parallel courses. Beginning with a rudely formed, simple implement, this was in time supplanted by others of com pound form and higher finish. A steady improvement in art-forms can be traced, until at the time of the Discovery by Columbus there was not a tribe on the continent nearly so low in culture as the first inhabitants of the soil.
of "Prehistoric" in American date of the Discovery may be taken as that which separates the historic from the pi-e h/sic/7'c in American annals. It is true that there are chronicles in exist ence which contain the history of particular nations for a few generations anterior to their first contact with the whites, but these are at best of uncertain tenor and refer to limited localities. In general, we may say that in America whatever is ante-Columbian is prehistoric.
Epochs of American the analogies of devel opment in the two hemispheres are obvious, we can scarcely apply to America the later portions of the scheme given on page 2S. This is particularly noticeable with reference to the use of metals. Several American nations were familiar with the employment of copper in the manufacture of implements, and at least two, the Mexicans and Peru vians, with bronze. But even these could not be said to have arrived at the Age of Bronze. That compound was not what they preferred for the production of cutting instruments; and the nation in many respects supe rior to either of them in artistic skill—the Mayas of Yucatan—was practically unacquainted with metals, and was \ vholly in the Age of Stone. One reason of this difference between the art-growth of the two
hemispheres was the abundance in tropical America of the volcanic min eral obsidian, which splits with great facility into splinters regular in outline and with a remarkably sharp cutting edge. Even where bronze was known, most implements for cutting or piercing, as knives, arrow and spear-heads, lancets, etc., continued to be made of obsidian.
Knowledge of Iron . —Iron in its industrial applications was totally unknown to any tribe in the Western Hemisphere. It was, indeed, occasionally used in decoration (see Vol. I. p. 173), and a few implements hammered out of native or meteoric iron appear to have been in use on the north-west coast of North America. But all such examples are insnf ficient to prove that even the incipiency of an Age of Iron was to be found anywhere in the Western World.
Dizisions of the Subject.—We shall therefore treat of the Archceolog_,y of America as lying altogether within the Age of Stone.' With reference to the character of the remains, it is divided distinctly into the PakeoEthic and the Neolithic Period, both of which can most profitably be studied in a geographical arrangement, as follows: