The Project Gutenberg EBook of On Limitations To The Use Of Some
Anthropologic Data, by J. W. Powell

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Title: On Limitations To The Use Of Some Anthropologic Data
(1881 N 01 / 1879-1880 (pages 73-86))

Author: J. W. Powell

Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18869]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY.

J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR.

* * * * *

ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE OF SOME ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.

BY J. W. POWELL.

ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE OF SOME ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.

BY J. W. POWELL.

* * * * *

ARCHAEOLOGY.

Investigations in this department are of great interest, and have
attracted to the field a host of workers; but a general review of the
mass of published matter exhibits the fact that the uses to which the
material has been put have not always been wise.

In the monuments of antiquity found throughout North America, in camp
and village sites, graves, mounds, ruins, and scattered works of art,
the origin and development of art in savage and barbaric life may be
satisfactorily studied. Incidentally, too, hints of customs may be
discovered, but outside of this, the discoveries made have often been
illegitimately used, especially for the purpose of connecting the tribes
of North America with peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other
portions of the world. A brief review of some conclusions that must be
accepted in the present status of the science will exhibit the futility
of these attempts.

It is now an established fact that man was widely scattered over the
earth at least as early as the beginning of the quaternary period, and,
perhaps, in pliocene time.

If we accept the conclusion that there is but one species of man, as
species are now defined by