An Introduction to the Study of Social Evolution; The Prehistoric Period

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913. Excerpt: ... VIII TRIBAL SOCIETY There are three means of determining approximately the characteristics of social life among prehistoric men: first, a considerable mass of archeological remains; second, the existence of survivals in the traditions of civilized society indicating a time when the ancestors of these peoples lived under very primitive conditions; and third, a general parallelism between some features of prehistoric cultures and some features of the culture of primitive societies which exist to-day among the Australian aborigines, the American Indians, and other savage peoples. But this parallelism has certain important limitations which must be remembered in any comparison we may wish to make. Modern savage groups live in relatively barren, inhospitable, inaccessible regions of the earth, into which they have been crowded by stronger peoples.1 Moreover, the spread of the European race with its highly developed civilization has cut short the growth of the existing independent germs of civilization among these primitive peoples without regard to their mental aptitude.2 Thus the parallelism is not exact, for while we cannot premise any marked intellectual superiority of prehistoric man over existing savages in explaining present cultural differences, we must recognize that advantage of some sort was possessed by the prehistoric iGiddings, Principles of Sociology, p. 210. 2 Boas, op. cit., p. 17. ancestors of civilized races over the early ancestors of existing savage peoples. The archeological remains of prehistoric man reveal to us much of his culture and practices. We have.mentioned briefly in the third chapter the various types of implements which prehistoric men manufactured. They were made of rough chipped flint, and later of polished stone and finally ...