| OCR Text |
Show 82 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY since the advent of Europeans. \ Yet in some regions, as Ohio, where some of the most important of these structures are found, there is good reason for thinking that their construction was not due to any tribe known to have inhabited the region within historic times. Some writers ascribed their origin to the Cherokees, who have traditions to that effect, but this conclusion is doubtful. Mn any case the culture exhibited in the mounds is not beyond that of many Indian tribes; and the theory of a pre- Indian race of mound- builders is unnecessary, and brings in the difficulty of accounting for the total disappearance of such a race. ^ Turning now to the western portion of the continent we find, outside of Mexico, several well-marked cultural areas, of which it will be sufficient to mention the northwest coast, California, and the pueblo region. The archaeology of the north Pacific region is closely connected with the present inhabitants of that section, who will be described below. 1 ^ n California, especially to the south, but little is known of the culture of the aboriginal inhabitants, who seem to have readily yielded to the teachings of the early Spanish missionaries and rapidly dwindled under their care. On the coast and islands of southern California some very in- 1 Smith, Archeology of Lytton, B. C. ( Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., Memoirs, 1899); Archeology of the Thompson River Region, B. C. ( ibid., 1900); Shell Heaps of the Lower Fraser River, B. C. ( ibid., 1903). |
