Page:The Journal of geology (IA journalofgeology11893univ).pdf/40
foundations, cellars, sewers, wells and graves that no man can, from a limited exposure such as those producing the reported tools necessarily were, speak with certainty of the undisturbed nature of the deposits penetrated. It is doubtful if any one is justified in publishing such observations at all without serious query. Such testimony is liable to fall of its own inherent weakness, being absolutely valueless if unsupported by collateral evidence of real weight. It can only be made permanently available to science by the discovery of something unusual or unique with which to couple it, something decidedly un-Indian in character or type, as for example the two skulls now in the Peabody Museum. These objects and the antler knife-handle exhibited with them may be alluded to as the only finds so far made at Trenton, having of themselves the least potentiality as proof and these skulls and this knife-handle must yet be subjected to the rigid examination made necessary by the importance of the conclusions to be based upon them.
Something may now be said concerning the art remains upon which this discussion hinges, and upon which conclusions of the greatest importance to anthropology are supposed to depend. Let us pass over all that has been said with regard to their manner of occurrence and association with the gravels and ask them simply what story they tell of themselves. Does this story, so far as we are able clearly to read it, speak of a great antiquity and a peculiar culture, or does it hint rather at vital weaknesses in the position taken by the advocates of these ideas? We shall see. The history of the utilization of rudely flaked stones in the attempt to establish a gravel man in America has never been written, but as read between the lines of paleolithic literature, it runs about as follows: The theory of a very rude and ancient people, having unique culture and certain peculiar art limitations, was developed in Europe many years ago in a manner well known and often rehearsed. This people was associated with the ice age in Europe, and this epoch, with its moraines and till and sedimented gravels, was found to have been repeated in America. It was the most natural thing