Abstract
THE latest addition to the excellent series of “Leaflets” describing the collections of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago (“Archaeology of South America”. By Eric J. Thompson. Leaflet 33. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Pp. 160, 12 pis., 18 text-figures and 1 map), is an introduction to, and description of, the cases in the museum covering the archaeology of South America. An account of the culture of the separate and distinct geographical and cultural areas of the sub-continent is preceded, by way of introduction, by a concise review of current theory of American origins. The indigenous civilization of South America, when the pre-Inca and Inca peoples are taken into account, ranges from the greatest achievements in social organization and material development of the New World before Columbus to what is perhaps the most backward of any culture known among surviving primitive peoples—the culture of the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, a people who in their native state have not advanced so far as polishing stone.
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American Cultural Origins. Nature 138, 716 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138716c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138716c0