the story of the mesa verde really had its beginning many thousands of years ago in a distant land. it began when the first ancient asiatic stepped across from siberia and became the first american. who he was and exactly when it happened we shall never know, but it was the important first step in a long chain of events which led to the occupation of the mesa verde by pueblo indians.
there seems to be little doubt that the early inhabitants of north and south america came from asia by that northern route. it is the only route by which men, traveling without artificial means of transportation, could have reached these western continents. not a single insurmountable barrier, not a single impossibility lay in the path of those ancient men as they drifted with the line of least resistance. from the northwest, america was discovered and populated.
men first came into being somewhere in the old world. from this point of beginning they spread slowly over the face of the earth. in all directions the ancient men traveled, always on foot, always without a goal. after a time europe, africa and asia were populated, but the americas remained without men. surrounded by vast areas of water, except at one point, the americas were the last great land bodies to be discovered.
finally, the day of discovery arrived. for countless centuries groups of men had been drifting over the great continent of asia. farther and farther they traveled until at last a group, perhaps forced on by stronger groups behind, stood on the utmost tip of northeastern asia, the tip of siberia now known as the east cape.
standing on the ocean shore those men shaded their eyes and looked out across the water. there, only fifty-six miles away, lay another land. curiosity, or perhaps the force of “enemy pressure”, urged them on. a means of crossing those fifty-six tantalizing miles was found. at last the first human foot touched american soil.
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at first glance it may seem that the crossing would be impossible for men who were without boats. such was not the case. in winter the bering sea often freezes over completely. present-day eskimos cross on the ice and only a few years ago a white man made the crossing with a dog team. thus, primitive man needed only the winter ice in order to satisfy his curiosity about the land across the water. the journey was made even less hazardous by two islands, the diomedes, that raised their heads in the center of the bering sea, cutting the crossing into two shorter jumps.
it is even possible that when those men reached that tip of asia no water separated them from america. a strip of land may have connected the two continents. it is known very definitely that at some not far distant date the two continents were connected by land, for some of our well-known animals have crossed from one to the other. the horse and the camel developed in america and walked off to asia. the mammoth and the bison reversed the direction and crossed from asia to america. in order for those beasts to make the crossing, a land bridge was necessary.
when the land bridge disappeared is not known. when the first men came is not known. certain it is, however, that if the land bridge was in existence when the first men came to america, it afforded them an easy approach. if, on the other hand, it had disappeared beneath the waves of the bering sea, the men must have crossed on the ice. no one can as yet be positive as to the exact manner of the crossing. the important point is that the crossing was made and america was discovered and populated. primitive man, after hundreds of thousands of years of wandering over the old world, had at last found the one point at which he could enter a new land.
that this new land was superior to the old soon became apparent to the newcomers. summers were longer: winters were less severe. hunting and fishing were excellent and in the summer edible plants were common. truly, here was a better land.
the first crossing from asia to america was made many thousands of years ago. from the evidence now at hand, fifteen or twenty thousand years seems to be not too great an antiquity for those first americans. even at that early date, however, man was well-developed mentally and physically and had all the 143 capabilities of modern man. the first american was no primitive brute. he was homo sapiens, little different from the fifteenth century foreigners who rediscovered america thousands of years later and gradually edged it away from its first settlers.
primitive human remains, such as those which have been found in the old world, have never been found in america. man went through his developmental stages in the old world and came to america at a late date, a fully developed human being. pithecanthropus erectus, sinanthropus, homo neanderthalensis—america has never known those tongue-twisting lowbrows!
after the first discovery of the new land there were innumerable rediscoveries. one group of men after another came to america and those migrations continued for thousands of years. the latest migrants came to america very recently. thus, america was populated by many successive waves of migration over a long period of time.
it seems, almost, that after the first group came, word may have spread from one small tribe to another that off to the east lay a better land. people were disappearing over the eastern horizon. what lay in that direction? curiosity urged them on!
it is altogether possible that actual word of the new land in the east went back to the asiatic continent. perhaps there were small counter migrations or perhaps some small traveling group, feeling a bond with some other group in the old country, sent runners back to beckon them on.
certain it is that there was not just a single migration. numerous groups of men filtered into america over a period of thousands of years. slowly, aimlessly, they wandered. one group pushed another and was in turn pushed by an oncoming tribe. after a time, north and south america were covered with hundreds of small tribes of indians.
the members of these various tribes were not all alike. they differed greatly in appearance, in language, in religion and in mode of living. the answer is apparent. the various groups came from different parts of asia. they came at different times. they settled in different parts of the new world and developed in different ways according to the natural resources in each region. as a result there came into being the many tribes of 144 american indians which were in america when columbus came on his journey of rediscovery from the east.
the early part of the story of the americas is still hazy. in spite of many years of search by dozens of top-flight archeologists there are many unanswered questions. each year expeditions sift through the dust of the ages on the trail of those early americans. more often than not the trail leads to a blank wall. the ancient past of the indian is clouded with uncertainty but the lure of the unknown still beckons to those who are endeavoring to trail him back to his asiatic birthplace.
the great trouble is that for thousands of years the indians lived a hunting life. they wandered from day to day, living on the natural foods they found in each day’s journey. there was no permanent home, no settled life. the hunter was ever on the trail of his next meal.
consider the life of the primitive hunter. each morning he is awakened by the pangs of hunger in his empty, flapping paunch and he views with dismay his breakfast which is disappearing over the horizon on four strong, swift legs. rubbing the sleep from his eyes he starts out in pursuit of his breakfast. failing to catch up with it, he starts after his lunch. if it eludes him, he begins to work on the next meal—and the next and the next. always he is one jump behind his food supply. when he makes a kill he gorges and smoothes the wrinkles out of his belly. when he fails, he goes hungry.
being forced to follow the game he is ever on the move. he can have no permanent home, no pottery, nothing that cannot easily be transported on the trail. one night he sleeps under a tree and leaves behind a broken stone knife. the next night he sleeps in a cave ten miles away and discards a worn-out sandal. the third night he builds his campfire beside a lake across the mountain. on and on through the days he moves and finally, when the end comes, the animals of the wild clean and scatter his bones and they return to the dust from whence they came.
the archeologist may find the stone knife and the discarded sandal. he may even find the long-cold ashes of the campfire. but there is nothing to indicate that all three belonged to the same man. there is not a single bit of evidence that ties them together.
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thus it is with the hunter. his trail is cold: the clews are few. he is the will-o-the-wisp of the human race. he has put many gray hairs in the head of the archeologist.
all of the early inhabitants of north and south america lived a wandering, hunting life. for thousands of years they lived on the chance products, animal and plant, that nature offered. they seldom stayed long in one place: they never built a permanent thing. to date the story of the first ten or fifteen thousand years is far from complete. it can be summed up in a few words.
the men themselves have, for the most part, eluded us. the fact that they lived a wandering life and seldom, if ever, buried the dead, has made it difficult to find the bones of the men themselves. however, the tools and weapons made and used by those men have been found in great numbers. and best of all, they have been found in situations which clearly indicate the antiquity of man in america.
a few thousand years ago there were elephants in america. the mammoth was here as well as his terrifying near-relative, the mastodon. there were horses in various parts of the country and a strange, lumbering animal, the ground sloth, was common. tremendous bison with long sweeping horns wallowed in the bogs and camels roamed the plains.
modern man has never seen those animals in america. they were gone long before he came. they had been extinct thousands of years before the first europeans poked their tardy noses into the new world.
in spite of this we know that the early indians did see them. they hunted them and lived on their flesh. they may have been a contributing factor in the extinction of some of those ancient species. changing weather conditions thinned out the great herds and man, not yet conservation conscious, may have helped to wipe out the survivors.
how do we know?
in a number of places the implements of those early men have been found in direct association with the bones of the extinct animals. the inference is unquestionable. dart points, knives, scrapers and other implements have been found so definitely associated with the bones of animals that there can be no doubt that man and the animals existed at the same time. if those 146 animals have been extinct for thousands of years it dates the earliest men fairly well.
one of the most important finds was made in northeastern new mexico, near the little town of folsom. this find was important because it was here for the first time that modern scientists were forced to admit that man had been in america a long, long time. it is also important because it has given a name to some of the ancient men. folsom man, the most elusive american we have yet been unable to find.
the discovery of the earliest evidences of folsom man is one of the strangest stories in american archeology. the events in the story covered a period of twenty-five years and it was only by chance that the important archeological evidence came to the attention of the scientific world.
back about 1900, a negro cowboy known as nigger george, was riding the range on the crowfoot ranch near the little town of folsom, new mexico, searching for cattle. as george rode along, he came to a deep arroyo so he turned his horse and rode along its bank. suddenly, in the opposite wall of the arroyo, the cowboy noticed some huge bones. they were larger than any bones he had ever seen and the fact that they were washing out of the arroyo wall several feet below the surface was puzzling. fortunately george, although an illiterate man, was curious about the bones and, instead of riding on and forgetting them, collected a number and took them to the ranch house.
the bones were obviously larger than those of modern bison or cattle but no one at the ranch was particularly interested in them. many years passed and finally someone became mildly interested in the bones and gave them to mr. ed price, of raton, new mexico. again the years passed and it was not until 1925 that the bones once more attracted attention. in that year a number were sent to the colorado museum of natural history and the paleontologists recognized them for what they were—the bones of an extinct bison. thousands of years ago the bison had roamed the plains of north america. they were tremendous, long-horned animals, larger than our present-day bison.
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park visitors entering balcony house on ranger-guided tour
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in order to obtain some of the ancient skeletons the museum sent expeditions to folsom, new mexico, and during three summers the men dug the great bones out of the arroyo bank. when the digging was finished, the men had recovered thirty skeletons of the long-extinct bison. but in addition, they had found something far more important. among the bison bones they had discovered nineteen beautiful dart, or spear points. the points were so closely associated with the bones that there could be no doubt as to their antiquity. and, with equal certainty, there could be no doubt that ancient hunters had killed the great bison.
all evidence indicated that a few thousand years ago this was a swampy, boggy place, a bison wallow. primitive hunters crept up on the drowsing animals and sometimes made a kill. they skinned the bison, cut off what meat they wanted and left the carcasses to rot in the mud. sometimes they failed to extract all of their dart points from the bodies of the bison. as the centuries passed the bones became deeply covered with earth and there they remained until that fateful day when nigger george rode by.
geologists who studied the folsom site felt that the bison bones had been there in the earth at least twelve or fifteen thousand years. the importance of the nineteen dart points was immediately evident. since they had caused the death of the bison there could be no doubt that men were in the area twelve or fifteen thousand years ago. before the folsom discovery archeologists had felt that men had been in america only a short time. now they were forced to revise their thinking concerning the antiquity of the american indian.
when the folsom discovery was announced many archeologists began searching for evidences of folsom man and a burning question was always in their minds. who would have the honor of finding folsom man himself? after twenty-five years of searching, the question is still unanswered. folsom man still evades his trackers for no skeletons have been found which can be considered, without doubt, to have belonged to him.
evidences are plentiful for in many parts of the united states the points have been found. but folsom man himself still eludes us. the name means little. it is a term that is rather loosely applied to the makers of the beautiful folsom points. they are entirely distinctive and are among the highest examples of the flint workers art that have been found in america. beautifully shaped, delicately chipped points with grooved faces, they can not be confused with any other dart or spear points. they have 150 been found in many places, often associated with the bones of extinct animals.
up in northern colorado, near the town of fort collins, is the lindenmeier site. in it were found the bones of the same bison as those of folsom. with them were the same folsom points. with them, also, were stone knives, scrapers, chopping and rubbing stones, as well as the ashes and charcoal from ancient campfires. they were spread over a large area. it was a campsite where folsom man actually had lived. was folsom man in camp? no, he had stepped out!
in nebraska, kansas, oklahoma, texas and other states, similar finds have been made. folsom points, and other points equally ancient, have been found in association with the bones of many extinct animals such as the bison, horse, mammoth and camel. everywhere are found the evidences; nowhere is found folsom man himself.
bones of the extinct animals, being solid and massive, have lasted well. tools made of stone last indefinitely. human bones, being thin and delicate, disintegrate more rapidly. there were probably few burials in those days and the human bones were scattered to the four winds. still the search goes on. sooner or later the find will be made. in the back of a dry cave somewhere in the southwest, probably, will be found some human bones. with them will be some folsom points. then we will know that the points and the bones belonged to the same man—folsom man.
or perhaps, when the human bones are found, a folsom point will actually be sticking in one of them. then we will be sure that we have folsom man or, at least, someone whom folsom man did not like.
although the actual physical remains of folsom man have not been found, a human skeleton, seemingly equally ancient, has recently been discovered. in 1947, scientists began excavating in a dry lake bed near mexico city because of reports that natives had been finding mammoth bones in the area. near the point where the mammoth bones had been found was discovered the partial skeleton of a man. the men who made the discovery were very sure the skeleton was as old as the layer of earth in which it was found, and this age was estimated to be 15,000 years.
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some scientists have been skeptical about the age of this skeleton, known as tepexpan man, feeling that it may represent a more recent burial. recently, however, another discovery has been made which adds strength to the belief that tepexpan man is ancient. early in 1952, the skeleton of a mammoth was found only a mile from the place where the human skeleton had been discovered. with the mammoth bones were found six man-made stone implements. one of these, a spear or dart point, was between two ribs of the mammoth—in all probability the animal had been killed by man. even more important, however, was the fact that the human skeleton and the mammoth skeleton were found in the same layer of earth.
the importance of these two discoveries is obvious. the mammoth skeleton and the accompanying man-made implements indicate that man and mammoth lived in the area at the same time. the fact that the human and mammoth skeletons were found in the same layer of earth indicates that they may be equally ancient, and geologists feel that layer of earth was deposited about 15,000 years ago.
thus, tepexpan man, unless grave errors were made during excavation, may well be the oldest human skeleton yet found in america. and the important point is that there was nothing primitive about this ancient man. he was a fully developed human being—homo sapiens. in appearance he was much like men of today and his brain was almost as large as that of the average modern man.
the search for america’s earliest inhabitants continues year after year. during the past twenty-five years many finds have been made but little has been learned about the people themselves. in each case, when an important find is made, it consists of spear points, dart points or other stone implements associated with the bones of extinct animals.
the folsom points, because of the importance of the original discovery, have received the greatest amount of publicity, but dart or spear points of many types have been found. usually these projectile points are named because of the place where they are discovered and as a result there are scottsbluff points, eden points, plainview points, sandia points, and many more. the great need, at the present time, is for skeletal remains of the early men themselves. some ancient human remains have 152 been found but scientists are not in complete agreement as to their age. even the tepexpan skeleton, which may be the most important of all, has not been accepted by all of the men who are working on the problem of early man in america.
the story is being carried farther and farther into the past by stronger and stronger evidences. no one knows where it will end. certain it is that america was discovered a great many thousands of years ago. columbus was a late comer and he came the hard way. the real discoverers of america came the easy way: they just walked over.
all of the early inhabitants of america lived by hunting and fishing and by gathering the fruits, nuts, roots, berries and seeds which nature offered. since they lived a roaming, drifting life, they built no permanent structures and as a result, their remains are not easily found. because of this there are many question marks in the early part of the story and much is yet to be learned about the earliest inhabitants of the americas.
as long as the early indians lived a wandering, hunting life there was no real progress and we must come down to comparatively recent times in order to appreciate the greatest accomplishments of the american indian. a short time ago, only a few thousand years at most, a very important thing happened. somewhere in mexico or central america, perhaps in south america, the first farmers appeared. some ancient burbank produced corn, the plant which was responsible for all of the highest indian cultures which the white man found when he blundered into america.
the origin of corn is still a mystery. for many years botanists have tried to trace it back to its wild plant ancestors but the entire story is still not known. corn has moved so far and has changed so radically that there are gaps in the story and we may never know exactly how the indians developed it. certainly it was the most important food plant the indians ever knew and because of it the lives of many indians underwent a radical change.
corn spread from one tribe to the next. one group after another found that farming was more dependable than hunting. farther and farther it spread until large portions of north and south america were covered with farming indians. with corn went other food plants which the indians developed; beans, squash, 153 potatoes, tomatoes, and many more. farming was in america to stay.
the result was amazing. many indians who formerly had followed the forest trails year after year now began to live settled lives. with dependable supplies of food coming from each harvest it was no longer necessary to move about. permanent habitations soon appeared and villages and towns developed. the population increased and people began to concentrate in the best farming areas. with all this came new inventions which led the people always to higher stages of development.
when the white man finally arrived in 1492, there were fifteen or twenty million indians in north and south america. some still lived by hunting, some by fishing, others by gathering the seeds, roots and other plant products offered by nature. but millions of the indians were highly developed agricultural people. the pueblo indians of the southwest, the indians of the new england states whom our first colonists met, the mayas and aztecs of mexico, the incas of south america, and many others had made surprising progress in a comparatively short time.
credit for this progress goes to the amazing plant, corn, the american indian’s greatest single contribution to modern man.
