From the accumulative force of these various lines of reasoning, the writer thinks that there is a strong probability that here, on the waters of the Delaware, man developed from the palæolithic to the neolithic stage of culture. But we cannot follow Dr. Abbott in his further conclusion (if, indeed, he still holds to it) that we are to seek the descendants of this primitive population in the Eskimos, driven north after contact with the Indians. We have failed to discover the slightest evidence to sustain this position. The hereditary enmity existing between the Eskimos and the Indians may be equally well explained upon the theory that the former are later comers to this continent, and are therefore hated by the Indian races as intruders. The two races are certainly markedly unlike.
In the absence of any evidence tending to show the development of the argillite-using people into the Indian races, with their perfected implements and weapons of the age of polished stone, it seems more reasonable to hold with Professor Dawkins that the earlier and ruder race perished before or were absorbed by a people furnished with a better equipment in the struggle for the “survival of the fittest.” The palæolithic man of the river gravels of Trenton and his argillite-using posterity the writer believes to be completely extinct.[1565]
It only remains for the writer to express his regret that he has been prevented from setting forth in detail, at the present time, the grounds upon which he has come to other conclusions which were briefly indicated at the beginning of this chapter. He can only repeat here his belief that the so-called Indians, with their many divisions into numerous linguistic families, were later comers to our shores than the primitive population, whose development he has attempted to trace; that the so-called “moundbuilders” were the ancestors of tribes found in the occupation of the soil; and that the Pueblos and the Aztecs were only peoples relatively farther advanced than the others.
The writer further thinks that these are propositions capable, if not of being demonstrated, at least of being made to appear in a very high degree probable by means of authorities which will be found amply referred to in other chapters of this volume.
[THE PROGRESS OF OPINION RESPECTING THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA.]
BY THE EDITOR.
THE literature respecting the origin and early condition of the American aborigines is very extensive; and, as a rule, especially in the earlier period, it is not characterized by much reserve in connecting races by historical analogies.[1566] Few before Dr. Robertson, in discussing the problem, could say: “I have ventured to inquire without presuming to decide.”