“We all know that there can be no true science that does not rest solidly upon facts. But the thought must often occur to many of us that there is some danger, especially among the younger scientists, that we may become obsessed with an exaggerated sense of the value of facts as such. Is there not too much emphasis laid by many professors in charge of research students on the mere accumulation of observational, statistical, or experimental facts, with too little attention to that side of science which concerns itself with those analytical and synthetic processes that convert facts into valuable ideas? It seems to me that this latter kind of work needs at the present time at least as much encouragement as the other. Of course, there is the possibility for ‘thinking’ to degenerate into profitless speculation; but we are certainly as much in need of the results of thinking about the facts already accumulated as we are of more facts.”
Such studies as those of Professor Holmes on pottery and quarries; such explorations as Mr. C. B. Moore’s in the South; the work done by Volk and Abbott in New Jersey, where they very carefully set aside the argillite and the quartzite and chipped implements as found in different places under different conditions; such work as Professor Mills has done in Ohio in differentiating the Hopewell and the Fort Ancient culture, are things that will count, and works that will stand. A surveyor should measure mounds, number skeletons, and draw plans. The librarian should read reports and compile statistics, but it requires a real archæologist to do the work that I have referred to above.
Squier and Davis, whose “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley” may be justly considered our standard work upon the mounds, not only explored, but they drew conclusions which, with here and there an exception, or a slight change, will stand at the present time. For many years Dr. Cyrus Thomas used all the tremendous energies of the Bureau of Ethnology to dispute the statements of those hard-working, painstaking, philosophical pioneers Squier and Davis. To-day we know that the culture they described is different from the Shawano, Cherokee, or other cultures which Thomas wished to establish in the Ohio Valley. The work of that distinguished citizen of Illinois, George Sellars, will bear comparison with the work of any other man since his day in the study of chipped flint objects, and if any one doubts the statement let him read and ponder upon Sellars’s complete narrative in the Smithsonian Report for 1885, and then read what has been said since by others.
Aside from the technical study of American archæology, there is a certain charm and fascination in investigation of these ancient remains. Although it has been thirty years since I found my first arrow-head, I never cease to feel a thrill of pleasure when, walking about the shores of lakes or streams, I happen to find one of these evidences of the real and the simple life. One’s mind, if he is inclined to dwell upon prehistoric times in America, naturally reverts to the past under such circumstances, and I close this work with a quotation from Dr. Abbott’s recent publication, “When as many a day has drawn to its close, while yet I lingered in the field and every sign of white man’s industry faded from view, the scattered trees became again a forest, the cry of the cougar and bleat of the fawn were heard, the bark of the fox and howling of the wolf filled the air, a lurid light of a camp-fire lit the sky; the days of the Indian had returned, nor did the illusion pass away until homeward bound, my hand was on the latch.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For obvious reasons this bibliography is not complete; to make an exhaustive catalogue of the titles dealing with the stone age in America would require the inclusion of many articles in out-of-the-way periodicals and newspapers that are now lost or out of print; in the next place, if made complete, even within the limits of possibility, such a list would require a separate volume out of all proportion to the dimensions of the present work.
In view of these facts, therefore, the attempt has been made, first, to give the publications to which reference has been made in the text; second, to present a list of general works of standard reputation, most of which are provided either with indexes or tables of contents raisonnés; third, to give some of the more important series of publications of individual authors dealing especially with excavations whose results are germane to the matter of the volumes; and fourth, to set forth a classified list of references by the use of which a student can at least learn something about the desired subject and at the same time may receive suggestions as to the methods and the literature necessary to further research.
In view of the change in archæological processes and opinions that has often occurred in a comparatively short space of time, the arrangement of the titles is made as a whole in chronological order.
GENERAL WORKS
Catlin, G. North American Indians. New York. 1841.