Prehistoric Archeology

Abstract

In the 50 years which have elapsed since 1888 an increasingly active interest features the search for Man's antecedents. The borderline field of prehistoric archeology encompasses both paleontology and archeology and, as the approach is made by the paleontologist, concerns itself more particularly with the sequence of faunas of the Quaternary and determination of first appearance of a human record in this sequence. Investigations conducted over this period of time seem to have emphasized the divergence in history of the New and Old World with regard to Man's time and place of development, and to have established more clearly and on a surer factual basis Man's position in the Quaternary sequence of America. The state of this knowledge in our own region is one, however, in which active interest is now thoroughly aroused with the result that accumulation of new facts is still in progress, and clarification of debatable issues a matter of the future. Practically all major discoveries made with reference to Man's geological history have occurred during the past 50 years. Of the several fossil representatives of Man found in the Old World, only the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon types were recorded prior to 1888. And in the instance of these species, their morphological characters as well as their distribution and associations have become much better known and more clearly defined with later discoveries made during the past 5 or 6 decades.

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