Chapter IX: Early Man in America.1 (2)

The city of Trenton, New Jersey, is built on a gravel terrace
whose surface is between forty and fifty feet above the flood
plain of the Delaware. We are told that this gravel is clearly a
river deposit, and must have been laid down by the Delaware at
some former time in its history. It is in this gravel deposit
that quite a large number of Paleolithic implements have been
found.

Paleolithic Implement, Argillite.

This cut is a representation of one of them, found under such
circumstances that there can be no question about its antiquity.
We are told it was taken from the face of the bluff fronting the
river. Owing to heavy rains, a large section off of the front of
the bluff became detached just the day before this specimen was
discovered. It was found in the fresh surface thus exposed,
twenty-one feet from the surface, almost at the bottom of the
gravel. Immediately above it, and in contact with it, was a
bowlder estimated to weigh over one hundred pounds. Immediately
above this last was a second and much larger bowlder. It is
manifest the implements could never have gotten in the place
found after the gravel had been deposited.54

This is only one of the many examples that could be given. But it
is to be noticed that implements of the Neolithic type do not
occur in the gravel, except on the surface. Dr. Abbott is not the
only one who has found those implements. Many of our best
American scholars have visited the locality and secured
specimens, amongst others, Prof. Boyd Dawkins, of England, who is
so familiar with this class of relics in Europe. We may consider
it proven, then, that in this country there was also a
Paleolithic Age. Our present information in regard to it is only
a beginning.

Since this interesting discovery was made in New Jersey we have
received news of similar discoveries in Minnesota. A lady, Miss
Frank Babbitt, has found in the modified drift of the Mississippi
River, at Little Falls, Minnesota, evidence of the existence of
Paleolithic man. The implements are made of quartz, and not
argillite, but closely resemble implements made of this later
material as described by Dr. Abbott. It is, to say the least, an
interesting coincidence that one of a very few flint implements
found in the Trenton gravel by Dr. Abbott should be identical in
shape with some of the flint implements in Minnesota.55

This point being determined, others at once spring up asking
solution. Among the very first is the question of age. The river
terrace on which Trenton is built is a geological formation, and
if we can determine its age we shall also determine at least one
point in the antiquity of man, for we know the implements are as
old as the gravels. It is not necessary for our purpose to give
more than the results of the careful labors of others in this
direction. We may be sure that this question has been carefully
studied. When the implements were first discovered, the gravels
were considered of glacial origin, and to that period they were
assigned by Dr. Abbott. Subsequently Prof. Lewis, a member of the
Pennsylvania State survey, decided that they were essentially
post-glacial—that is, more recent in time than the Glacial Age.56
Still more recently Prof. Wright, of Oberlin, but also of the
State survey of Pennsylvania, concludes that they are, after all,
a deposit made at the very close of the Glacial Age.57

He thinks the sequence of events were about as follows: When the
ice of the Glacial Age reached its greatest development, and came
to a pause in its southward march, it extended in an unbroken
wall across the northern part of New Jersey, crossing the
Delaware about sixty-five miles above Trenton. In front of it was
accumulated the great terminal morain—a long range of gravelly
hills still marking its former presence.

It is certain that the close of the Glacial Age was comparatively
sudden, and marked by floods far exceeding any thing we are
acquainted with at the present day. For, when the formation of
the ice ceased, we must bear in mind that the country to the
north of the terminal morain was covered with a great glacier, in
some places exceeding a mile in thickness. When glacial
conditions were passing away, and the ice commenced to melt
faster than it was produced, the thaw would naturally go on over
the entire field at an increasing rate, and hence would result
floods in all the rivers.

He considers the gravels in question to have been deposited near
the close of this flooded period, when the land stood at about
its present level and the glaciers had retreated perhaps to the
Catskill Mountains. The rivers were still swollen and would be
heavily charged with coarse gravel brought from the morains and
lying exposed on the surface of the ground vacated by the
glaciers.58

Probably but few geologists will take exceptions to these views.
Thus we have very satisfactory reasons for connecting these
Paleolithic people with the close of the Glacial Age—a conclusion
to which the scattering discoveries mentioned in the preceding
pages also points. But as regards Dr. Abbott’s discoveries, they
are on such a scale, and vouched for by so many eminent
observers, that we need no longer hesitate to accept them, or
complain of the scattering nature of the finds.

But we might inquire whether this is the earliest period to which
the presence of man can be ascribed in this country? Excepting,
of course, California, we do not know of any well established
fact on which to base a greater antiquity for man. However, this
subject is very far from being as closely studied as in Europe.
Believing that in Europe man was living before the Glacial Age,
and that in all probability he was living in California at the
same early time, we would naturally expect to find some evidence
of his presence in the Mississippi Basin and along the Atlantic
seaboard. But no explorer has yet been fortunate enough to make
such discoveries.59

It is scarcely necessary to point out that we have only the
relative age of these gravel deposits. We have not yet arrived at
an answer in years. This we are not able to do. As we have
several times remarked, our American scholars, as a rule, do not
think many thousands of years have elapsed since the Glacial Age,
and yet they are not all agreed on that point. From the depths in
the gravel and loess deposits that the stone relics are found, we
may suppose that man was present during the entire series of
years their formation represents. Prof. Aughey, to whose
discoveries in loess deposits in Nebraska we have referred,
estimates the length of time necessary to produce those deposits
as between nineteen and twenty thousand years, and this he
considers a low estimate. So we see that, at any rate, the date
of man’s first appearance in America was certainly very far in
the past.

In forming a mental picture of the conditions of life at that
early time, it is not necessary to imagine a dreary scene of
Arctic sterility. This is not true of the time when the Glacial
Age was at its greatest severity. But at the time we are now
considering, the glaciers had retreated over a large part of the
country, though they still lingered in northern and mountainous
regions. Great lakes and majestic rivers were the features of the
country. The St. Lawrence was still choked with ice, and the
great lakes must have discharged their waters southward.60 The
Mississippi, gathering in one mighty stream the drainage of the
Central Basin, sped onward to the Gulf, doubtless many times
larger than its present representative. The animals then living
included several species that have since become extinct.
Mastodons and elephants must have been numerous, as their remains
are frequently found in loess deposits.61 They have also been
found in the gravels of New Jersey, in connection with the rude
implements already mentioned. Probably keeping close to the
retreating glaciers were such animals as the moose, reindeer, and
musk-ox, while the walrus disported itself in the waters off the
coast. At any rate those animals now only found in high northern
latitudes were living during Glacial times as far south as
Kentucky and New Jersey.62

A good deal of interest is connected with the finding of one
mastodon’s tooth. It was found in the gravel deposit, about
fourteen feet beneath the surface. It must have been washed to
the position where found when the great floods from the melting
glacier, with their burden of sand and gravel, were rolling down
the valley. We can either conclude that the climate was such as
to permit the existence of such animals, or that the animal to
which it belonged lived in some far away pre-glacial time. But
our interest suddenly increases when we learn that, but a few
feet away, under exactly similar circumstances, was found the
wisdom tooth of a human being. It, too, was rolled, scratched,
and polished, and had evidently been swept along by the
tumultuous flood. “The same agency that brought the one from the
Upper Valley of the Delaware brought the other, and, after long
years, they come again to light, and jointly testify that, in
that undetermined long ago, the creatures to which they
respectively belonged were living together in the valley of the
river.”63

We must now consider the question of race. Who were the men that
fashioned the implements? Were they Indians? or were they a
different people? As far as we know the Indians, they were
Neolithic. Their implements and weapons are often polished,
pecked, and finely wrought; and, as before remarked, they
employed the best kind of stone for their purpose. Dr. Abbott,
who speaks from a very extensive personal experience, tells us,
that it is not practical to trace any connection between the
well-known Indian forms and the Paleolithic implements of the
river gravels: “The wide gap that exists between a full series of
each of the two forms is readily recognized when the two are
brought together.”64 Besides this difference in form, there is
also a difference in material. The ruder forms not being of
jasper and allied minerals, but are almost exclusively of
argillite.65 In addition to the foregoing, we must consider the
different positions they occupy—the former being found only on or
near the surface, the latter deeply buried within. These
different reasons all point to the same conclusion: that is, that
the Indians were preceded in this country by some other people,
who manufactured the Paleolithic specimens recently discovered.

In Europe, Prof. Dawkins, as we have seen, maintains that the
Cave-men were the predecessors of the Eskimos. This may serve us
as a point of departure in the inquiry as to who the pre-Indian
people were? It is manifest, however, that we must have some
ground on which to base this theory. The Eskimo seem to belong to
the Arctic region, as naturally as the white bear and the walrus.
At the early time we are considering in America, glaciers had not
retreated very far. So his climatic surroundings must have been
much the same as at present. But the Eskimo may not live where he
does now by choice: we may behold in him a people driven from a
fairer heritage, who found the ice-fields of the North more
endurable than the savage enemy who envied him his possession. It
seems very reasonable to suppose that the Eskimos long inhabited
this country before the arrival of the Indians, if it was not, in
fact, their original home.

Mention has been made of the Eskimo traits still to be observed
among the tribes of California. Prof. Putnam thinks that this
fact can best be explained on the supposition that these tribes
came in contact with primitive Eskimo people.66 Dr. Rink, from
investigation of the language and traditions of the different
Eskimo tribes, thinks they are of American origin, and must once
have lived much farther south.67 He says, “The Eskimos appear to
have been the last wave of an aboriginal American race, which has
spread over the continent from more genial regions— following
principally the rivers and water-courses, and continually
yielding to the pressure of the tribes behind them until they
have at last peopled the sea-coasts.”68 Mr. Dall, in his
explorations of the Aleutian Islands, comes to the same
conclusion as Dr. Rink. He says his own conclusions are, “that
the Eskimos were once inhabitants of the interior of North
America—have much the same distribution as the walrus, namely, as
far south as New Jersey.”69

All this tends to prove that the Paleolithic people of New Jersey
were ancestors of the Eskimos. This becomes highly probable when
we pursue the subject a little farther. Dr. Abbott has shown,
from the similarity of implements, position in which found, and
so forth, that the Paleolithic people continued to occupy the
country down to comparatively recent times, when Indian relics
took their place.70 This is such an important point that we must
give his reasons more in detail. Remember that Dr. Abbott speaks
from the experience gained by gathering over twenty thousand
specimens of stone implements, and paying especial attention to
the position in which they were found. The surface soil of that
section of New Jersey, where he made his explorations, was formed
by the slow decomposition of vegetable and forest growth. In this
layer he found great numbers of undoubted Indian implements. The
number, however, rapidly decreases the deeper we go in this
stratum. This would show that the Indians were late arrivals.
Below this surface soil is a stratum of sand, overlying the
gravelly beds below and passing into the surface soil just
mentioned. In this layer were found great numbers of implements
inferior to the Indian types found on the surface, but superior
to the Paleolithic specimens described. They are not only
inferior in finish to the Indian specimens, but are of different
material. They are always formed of argillite. It was further
noticed that the number of these rapidly decreased in the layer
of surface soil, and are but rarely found on the surface.

Now it might be said that these rude forms were fashioned by
Indians when in a rude state of culture, and, as they became more
advanced, they learned the superior qualities of flint, and so
dropped the use of argillite. But it so happens that we have
found several places where were veritable manufactories of Indian
implements. It is very significant that we never find one where
the workman used both flint and argillite. He always used flint
alone. Every thing seems to point to the fact, that the tribes
who fashioned the argillite implements were different from the
Indian tribes who made the flint implements. It is Dr. Abbott’s
conclusions that the former, the descendants of the Paleolithic
tribes, were the Eskimos, who, according to these views, must
have inhabited the eastern portion of the United States to
comparatively recent times.

In further support of these views, we think we have grounds for
asserting that we have veritable historical accounts of the
Eskimo people slowly retiring before the aggressions of their
Indian foes. It is no longer doubted but that Norsemen, as early
as the year 1000, made voyages of discovery along the coast of
North America, as far south as Rhode Island: they called the
country Vineland. It is true that the Icelandic accounts of these
expeditions contain some foolish and improbable statements; but
so do the writings of Cotton Mather, made many years later.

These accounts refer but very briefly to the inhabitants they
saw, but enough is given to show that the people were not
Indians, but Eskimos. The language used is: “The men were small
of stature and fierce, having a bushy head of hair, and very
great eyes, and wide cheeks.”71 Their small size is frequently
referred to, which would surely not be the case if they were
describing the Algonkins that the English colonists found in the
same section of country many years later. To the same effect is
the assertion that the Eskimos did not reach Greenland until the
middle of the fourteenth century.72 The traditions of the
Tuscarawas Indians that place their arrival on the Atlantic coast
in the year 1300, also refer to a tribe of people that were at
least much like the Eskimos.73

Thus we are led, step by step, to the recognition of a
Paleolithic Age in America, and finally to the belief that the
descendants of these people were Eskimos. We at once notice the
coincidence of these results with some of the conclusions of
Prof. Dawkins, of England, and it is desirable to trace a little
farther the points of resemblance and difference between this age
in America and in Europe. In this latter country we have seen the
Paleolithic Age can be divided into two stages, or epochs, during
which different races inhabited the country. The first, or the
epoch of the men of the River Drift, long preceded the epoch of
the Cave-men. It was those latter tribes only that Mr. Dawkins
connects with the Eskimos.

We have not yet found evidence in this country that points to
such a division of the Paleolithic Age. We have no relics of
Cave-men as distinguished from the men of the River Drift. It is
true, we are not lacking evidence of the use of caves by various
tribes,74 but there is nothing to show that such use was very
ancient, or that the people were properly Paleolithic. We can not
say what future discoveries will unfold, but as yet we have only
implements of the River Drift type, and these are the men Dr.
Abbott considers to be the ancestors of the Eskimos. In this
country, then, we have shown the existence of but one race of men
in the same stage of culture as the men of the River Drift, but
of the same race as the men of the Cave. These results may be
cited as an argument in favor of those scholars who think that
the men of the River Drift and the men of the Cave were in
reality the same people.75

In Europe there was apparently a long lapse of time between the
disappearance of the Paleolithic tribes and the arrival of the
Neolithic people, but we have no evidence of such a period in
America. The Paleolithic people remained in possession until
driven away by the Neolithic ones. All evidence of Paleolithic
man in Europe terminated with the Glacial Age, and there is
little doubt but what they date from preglacial times. Our
present knowledge does not carry us any farther back in this
country than the close of Glacial times. If we consider that the
Glacial Age in America coincides in time with the same age in
Europe, then the last statements would imply that the Paleolithic
Age here was later than in Europe; in fact, that Paleolithic man
had run his course in Europe before he appeared in America, and
some might even go further, and say that he migrated from Europe
to America. There are, however, no good grounds for such
conclusions. We believe that future discoveries will show that in
America also Paleolithic man was living in Glacial and preglacial
times.76

We feel that we have done but scant justice to this subject, but
we assure our readers that this question has been but little
studied in this country. Referring all relics of stone to the
Indians, our scholars have been slow to recognize traces of an
earlier race in America. Our sources of information are as yet
but few, and much remains to be done in this field. In Europe as
in America, scholars are still hard at work on the Paleolithic
Age, and we are to hold ourselves in readiness to modify our
opinions, or to reject them entirely and adopt new ones as our
knowledge increases.

There is one thought that occurs to us. From the combined
investigations of both European and American scholars, the Eskimo
is seen to be one of the oldest (if not the oldest) races of men
now living. They afford a striking illustration of the fact that
a race may early reach a limit of culture beyond which, as a
race, they can not pass. Should the American discoveries
establish the fact that the River Drift tribes are also Eskimos,
then we are fairly entitled to consider them the remnant of a
people who once held possession of all the globe, but who have
been driven to the inhospitable regions of the North by the
pressure of later people. What changes have come over the earth
since that early time? In the long lapse of years that have gone
by newer races, advancing by slow degrees, have at last achieved
civilization. The fiat of Omnipotent power could have created the
world in a perfected form for the use of man, but instead of so
doing, Infinite Wisdom allowed slow-acting causes, working
through infinite years, to develop the globe from a nebulous
mass. Man could, indeed, have been created a civilized being, but
instead of this, his starting-point was certainly very low. He
was granted capacities in virtue of which he has risen. We are
not to say what the end shall be, but we think it yet far off.

Stone Implement.
REFERENCES

The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Dr. C. C.
Abbott, of Trenton, New Jersey, for criticism.

Dana’s “Manual of Geology,” p. 735, _et seq._

Ibid., p. 753.

Whitney’s “Geology of California,” Vol. I.

Whitney’s “Geological Survey of California,” Vol. I.

Dr. Newbury’s “Geological Survey of California.”

Whitney’s “Auriferous Gravels of California,” p. 283.

Cambridge Lecture, 1878.

Cambridge Lecture, 1878.

“Native Races,” Vol. IV, p. 698.

In general, all about Sonora, in the auriferous gravels, are
found bones of extinct animals, and, associated with them, many
relics of the works of human hands. These are found at various
depths down to one hundred feet. (Whitney’s “Auriferous
Gravels,” p. 263.)

_American Journal of Science,_ Vol. XIX, p. 176, 1880.

“Auriferous Gravels,” p. 279.

Wright’s “Studies in Science and Religion,” p. 289.

Dawkins, in Southall’s “Pliocene Man,” p. 18.

Southall’s “Pliocene Man,” p. 19.

Schoolcraft’s “Archæology,” Vol. I, p. 105.

As bearing on the question of Pliocene man, we might refer to
the impression of human (?) foot-prints in the sand-stone
quarry of the State prison at Nevada. At one time this area was
the bottom of a lake, and we can plainly see the tracks of
various animals that came down to drink. A huge mammoth visited
the place; so also did horses and other animals. Among these is
one series of tracks evidently made by a biped. Some think they
are the sandaled foot of a human being. This question is still
under discussion.

“Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian,” Vol. VII, p.
11.

Dana’s “Manual of Geology,” p. 583.

Putnam, in “Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian,”
Vol. VII, p. 11.

Ibid., p. 18.

“Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian,” Vol. VII, p.
12.

“Prehistoric Times,” p. 436.

“Human Species,” p. 147.

The researches of Mr. Dall in the Aleutian Islands demonstrate
the long-continued occupation of them by a savage people, and a
gradual advance of the same in culture—though this apparent
advance may have been simply the inroads of more advanced
tribes. U.S. Geographical Survey W. of 100th M., p. 12.

Wright’s “Studies in Science and Religion,” p. 292.

Morgan’s “Ancient Society,” p. 108, note.

“Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian,” Vol. VII, p.
3.

Bancroft’s “Native Races,” Vol. III, pp. 646, 647.

“U.S. Geographical Survey West of the 100th Meridian,” Vol.
VII, p. 12.

Dana’s “Manual of Geology,” p. 591.

LeConte’s “Elements of Geology.”

Prof. Winchell, in his last work, “World Life,” p. 363, _et
seq.,_ goes over the entire subject. As might be expected, no
decisive results are obtained. He sums up the arguments to show
that in this country the close of the Glacial Age is not more
than seven thousand years ago (p. 375). The student who reads
these pages and then Mr. Geikie’s work, “Prehistoric Europe,”
will be sorely puzzled to know what conclusions to adopt. We
can not do better than refer to the chapter on Antiquity
Paleolithic Age.

Dana’s _Am. Journal of Science,_ May, 1875.

Foster’s “Prehistoric Races,” p. 62.

See Lockwood, in _Popular Science Monthly_ for 1883, for
account of beaver dam built on a mastodon skeleton and evidence
of contemporaneity of Indians and mastodons.

“The Missouri was a stream thirty miles wide.”

“Hayden,” p. 255.

For the facts on which this paragraph rests, see Report of
Samuel Aughey, Ph.D., in “U.S. Survey of the Territories, for
1874,” p. 243, _et seq._

“American Assoc. Rep.,” 1880, p. 720.

“Illinois Geological Reports,” Vol. III, p. 123.

“Prehistoric Races,” p. 69.

Jones’s “Antiquities of the Southern Indians,” p. 293.

Jones’s “Antiquities of the Southern Indians,” p. 295.

Quoted by Abbott’s “Primitive Industry,” p. 3.

Peet’s “Archæology of Europe and America,” p. 11.

Short’s “North Americans of Antiquity,” p. 27.

Up to the present time (1884) Dr. Abbott has collected over
20,000 specimens of stone implements, and all his more recent
“finds” but confirm the opinion he expressed as to their
significance ten years ago. His collection is at the Peabody
Museum of Archæology, at Cambridge, Mass. (See last Peabody
Report.)

“Nature,” Vol. XI, p. 215.

Ibid.

“Nature,” Vol. XI, p. 215.

Ibid.

“Primitive Industry,” Abbott, p. 506.

Seventeenth Report Peabody Museum, p. 354 and note.

“Primitive Industry,” p. 551.

“Studies in Science and Religion,” p. 324.

Ibid., p. 324.

We believe that similar results will attend the careful
exploration in other sections. As bearing on this subject, it
is interesting to know that Paleolithic implements are reported
from one locality in Mexico. Our information in regard to them
is very slight. (Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1881; Pres. Address,
Count De Saporte, _Popular Science Monthly,_ Sept., 1883.)

Dana’s “Manual of Geology,” p. 540.

“Geographical and Geological Survey,” 1874, p. 254.

Abbott’s “Primitive Industry,” p. 483.

Abbott: “Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,”
Vol. XXII, p. 102.

“Primitive Industry,” p. 512.

“Primitive Industry,” p. 512.

U.S. survey West of the 100th Meridian,” Vol. VII, p. 12.

Abbott’s “Primitive Industry,” p. 520.

Ibid., p. 519.

U.S. Geographical Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region,” Vol. I,
p. 102, quoted from “Primitive Industry,” p. 519.

_Popular Science Monthly,_ Jan., 1883.

DeCosta’s “Precolumbian Discovery of America,” p. 69.

Winchell’s “Preadamites,” p. 389.

Brinton’s “Myths of the New World,” p. 23. Note.

Prof. DeHass’s “Paper” read before Am. Assoc., 1882.

See chapter, “Cave-men,” p. 113. Note.

See remarks of Prof. Boyd Dawkins quoted earlier.