holmes] A AT THROPOLOG1C LITER A TURE I 77
in so far as its complex and obscure data are correctly observed, treated, and applied to the elucidation of human history.
The difficulty of classifying the subject matter of archeology is pointed out by the author, and proper stress is laid on the shortcomings of European classification and nomenclature as applied to America. In presenting the subject, the objective data are arbitrarily but conven- iently arranged in three great groups, viz : monuments, relics, and paleo- graphic remains. These are not to be grouped or studied as a whole on this plan, but the continent is divided into three parts, called culture areas, and in each of these the remains are independently studied and discussed, and so far as necessary comparisons are made with the other areas and with other continents. The method, therefore, is primarily geographic and secondarily typologic or ethnic. The three divisions are the Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Pacific. The separation of the Arctic division is natural enough, and Professor Thomas refers to the separation of the Atlantic and the Pacific as follows :
"One of the first impressions made upon the mind of the student of North American ethnology is the resemblance in a broad and general sense of the features, customs, arts, and archaeological remains of the west coast to those of the islands in and countries bordering on the Pacific ocean, while on the other hand there is no such resemblance between them and those of the Atlantic slope. In other words, the types when classified in the broadest sense appear to arrange themselves in two general divisions — those belonging to the Pacific slope and those confined to the Atlantic slope" (page 17).
In chapter in a few pages are devoted to the methods of study adopted. Though the natural order of presenting the data of human history is to begin with the earliest traces of the race and to proceed in chronologic order to the latest, the author in his special field chooses to begin with the well known in native American history, and to carry investigation back along various important lines into the remote and obscure realms of prehistoric times. Thirteen pages are given to the very limited archeological phenomena of the Arctic division, and the author then passes to the Atlantic division in which he himself has been a leading investigator. Questions relating to the mound-builders claim first attention, and the matter presented possesses exceptional value, coming as it does from the pen of one so familiar with the field in all its varied aspects. His conclusions are, in brief, that the mound- building peoples were Indians (as the term is commonly accepted) ; that mound-building began in the Mississippi region many centuries ago and continued down to the coming of Europeans, and that the mound-builders are represented in a number of existing tribes, some of which have been fully identified. The subject of the origin and migra-
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