The last few years have seen a rapid advance in our knowledge of the early inhabitants of America, not of their bones, which are still elusive, but of the ways in which they lived and the things they made and used. The appearance of two important publications gives occasion for a brief review of the present state of the problem and how it appears from outside.
Dr Wormington’s book is a new edition of an old friend, which is, like its predecessors, indispensable to anyone who wants to keep up with the material. It gives concise factual accounts of a large number of finds ; it aims at inclusiveness rather than selection, and the material is becoming rather overwhelming in volume, but the evidence, or lack of it, for dating a site is always clearly set out and the reader has no difficulty in picking out those which are really significant. Wormington can now divide her material into Palaeoeastern and Palaeowestern Traditions, of which more will be said below, as well as a Palaeonorthern one which has not yet been proved to be so early in date. Professor Jennings’ monograph had not been published when her book appeared, but she had an idea of its significance from progress reports. It describes the excavation of three caves in western Utah, of which by far the most important is Danger Cave ; the evidence is fully but rather naïvely set out, and it would have gained by being more concisely expressed.