210. Later Asiatic Influences
One set of influences the Eskimo, and to a lesser degree the peoples of adjacent areas, were unquestionably subject to and profited by: sporadic culture radiations of fairly late date from Asia. Such influences were probably not specially important, but they are discernible. They came probably as disjected bits independent of one another. There may have been as many that reached America and failed of acceptance as were actually taken up. In another connection (§ [92]) it has been pointed out how the tale known as the “Magic Flight” has spread from its Old World center of origin well into northwestern America. A similar case has been made out for a material element: the sinew-backed or composite bow (§ [101]), first found some three to four thousand years ago in western Asia. This is constructed, in Asia, of a layer each of wood, sinew, and horn; in its simpler American form, which barely extends as far south as the Mexican frontier, of either wood or horn reinforced with sinew. Body armor of slats, sewn or wound into a garment, seems to have spread from Asia to the Northwest Coast. The skin boat, represented in its most perfect type by the Eskimo kayak; the tipi or conical tent of skins; birchbark vessels; sleds or toboggans with dog traction; bark canoes with underhung ends; and garments of skin tailored—cut and sewn—to follow the contours of the body, may all prove to represent culture importations from Asia. At any rate they are all restricted in America to the part north and west of a line connecting the St. Lawrence and Colorado rivers, the part of the continent that is nearest to Asia. South and east of this line, apparently, Middle American influences were strong enough to provide the local groups with an adequate culture of American source; and, the Asiatic influences being feeble on account of remoteness, Asiatic culture traits failed of acceptance. It is also noteworthy that all of the traits last mentioned are absent on the Northwest Coast, in spite of its proximity to Asia. The presumable reason is that the Northwest Coast, having worked out a relatively advanced and satisfactory culture adaptation of its own, had nothing to gain by taking over these elementary devices; whereas to the culturally poorer peoples of the Arctic, Mackenzie, Plateau, and in part of the California, Plains, and Northeastern areas, they proved a valuable acquisition.
A careful analysis of Eskimo culture in comparison with north and east Asiatic culture may reveal further instances of elements that have spread from one hemisphere to the other. Yet the sum total of such relatively late contributions from the civilization of the Old World to that of the New, during the last one or two or three or four thousand years, is not likely to aggregate any great bulk. Since the early culture importation of the period of the settlement of America eight or ten thousand years ago, the influences of the Old World have always been slight as compared with the independent developments within the New World. Even within the northwestern segment of North America, the bulk of culture would seem to have been evolved on the spot. But mingled with this local growth, more or less modifying it in the nearer regions, and reaching its greatest strength among the Eskimo, has been a trickling series of later Asiatic influences which it would be mistaken wholly to overlook.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GROWTH OF CIVILIZATION: OLD WORLD PREHISTORY AND ARCHÆOLOGY
[211.] Sources of knowledge.—[212.] Chronology of the grand divisions of culture history.—[213.] The Lower and Upper Palæolithic.—[214.] Race influence and regional differentiation in the Lower Palæolithic.—[215.] Upper Palæolithic culture growths and races.—[216.] The Palæolithic aftermath: Azilian.—[217.] The Neolithic: its early phase.—[218.] Pottery and the bow.—[219.] Bone tools.—[220.] The dog.—[221.] The hewn ax.—[222.] The Full Neolithic.—[223.] Origin of domesticated animals and plants.—[224.] Other traits of the Full Neolithic.—[225.] The Bronze Age: Copper and Bronze phases.—[226.] Traits associated with bronze.—[227.] Iron.—[228.] First use and spread of iron.—[229.] The Hallstadt and La Tène Periods.—[230.] Summary of development: Regional differentiation.—[231.] The Scandinavian area as an example.—[232.] The late Palæolithic Ancylus or Maglemose Period.—[233.] The Early Neolithic Litorina or Kitchenmidden Period.—[234.] The Full Neolithic and its subdivisions in Scandinavia.—[235.] The Bronze Age and its periods in Scandinavia.—[236.] Problems of chronology.—[237.] Principles of the prehistoric spread of culture.