cannot be pigeon-holed. There is no single formula for culture. The customs of a given people should be studied as a whole in their context, and this is possible only by the historical method. The factors of individual intelligence, thought, reason, and inventive powers, in the development of institutions and customs, are too rarely taken into account.

I have intimated the single evolutionary series through which man has gone on the physical side. Owing to several of the late discoveries of early types of man in Europe, there is strong reason to suppose that even on the physical side man did not have a monotypical evolution. Certain fairly well developed types of human skulls, such as the Piltdown and possibly the Galley Hill man, are encountered in the same early geological horizon as that which contains forms of man far lower in physical development. It is now almost impossible to reconstruct an ancestral tree without a large number of dead branches. We can, then, sum up by saying that early man's social history has not been along a single line of development.

INTERPRETATION OF SIMILAR PHENOMENA

In spite of the fact that we do not find a single evolutionary line of cultural forms, the world is full of examples of customs that appear similar. This resemblance may be a fundamental one or it may be superficial. How are these similarities to be explained? If there were a monotypical evolution of cultural traits, similar customs might well be interpreted in the same way, as the assumption of an identical historical background is fundamental to this theory.

We deny once more a universal identity in cultural

evolution, but there is no doubt that we do find in some cases identical psychological, environmental, and cultural conditions producing similar customs. The forces necessary to bring this about are so varied and so numerous that an absolute parallel is by no means frequent. In this case we start with similar customs and end with similar results. This process is often called "psychic unity," or parallel evolution: a uniform mental, cultural, and environmental background producing customs that are, for all practical purposes, identical. We may find, on the other hand, that features that appear similar may have had a very different history leading back to dissimilar beginnings. This has often been called "convergent evolution." On the physical side the anthropoid apes, when compared among themselves, present a good example of this type.

The reverse of this is the argument that dissimilarity may arise from beginnings that are similar. We find, in this case, uniform beginnings developing along different lines, "divergent evolution." Man compared with the anthropoids furnishes an illustration of this.

So we have similar beginnings with similar endings, dissimilar beginnings with similar endings, similar beginnings with dissimilar endings, and dissimilar beginnings with dissimilar endings,-truly a confusing number of processes.

A far more obvious way to explain similarity in features of cultural life is by means of contact, dissemination of ideas from people to people. Let us consider this in some detail. Speech, fire, and some variety of cutting implement are found among all peoples, and these acquisitions seem to have been in the possession of man as long as man has been man. To these might

possibly be added: the belief that the world is peopled by spirits or souls; usually called Animism; certain forms of magic; string of some kind, and knots; and the domesticated dog. These are all world-wide in distribution. The general level of early man's mental ability, "the identity of the primary needs of life," and the more or less similar features of his environment make it evident that many of the features just mentioned were universally distributed among all peoples at a very early time in man's history, before his wanderings took place from his single cradle-land or, as data may come to be interpreted, from his several cradle-lands.10 There is an increasing amount of evidence that seems to show, as already pointed out, several different lines of development on the physical side, and a corollary to this would be a multiple origin for mankind, the resuscitated theory of the polygenist.

Leaving behind these beginnings, shared by all mankind, it is well to consider in some detail the migration of ideas and of commodities of a more complicated nature from people to people. The study of Archeology has revealed the early and wide extent of trade. Amber beads found in graves scattered over a great part of Europe show that from the end of Neolithic times onward through the Bronze and Iron ages great trade routes were open, starting at the source of this amber on the west coast of Denmark and the southern shores of the Baltic, and reaching the Adriatic, and thence by water to all parts of the Mediterranean. Etruscan remains found in Brittany, England, and Ireland, as well as in Denmark and northern Germany, show trade in the opposite direction. The products of the Ægean civilization traveled long distances northward connect

ing Switzerland, Bohemia, parts of Austria Hungary, and the lower Danube with Hissalik, Cyprus, and the Cylades. Remains have been found in Spain which can be traced to the earlier settlements of Troy.

The same wide-spread distribution of the spiral ornament also shows extensive migration. It is undoubtedly derived from the technique of bronze-working, the spiral wire in bronze furnishing the idea for its use in other mediums. It is first found on a common form of scarab decoration in the XIIth Dynasty in Egypt. It reached Crete before 2000 B.C., and like many other Cretan forms, it spread to the mainland and to the other islands. It is found on Neolithic pottery in Bosnia, from which it followed the amber routes along the Elbe to the North Sea shores of Jutland, thence into Scandinavia. It reached Spain and France and as far as the British Isles early in the Bronze Age. This same ornament also travelled northeast beyond the Carpathian Mountains.11

Folk-tales illustrate perhaps better than anything else the facts of wide-spread dissemination. Everyone is familiar with the Brer Rabbit stories told by Uncle Remus and his faithful chronicler, Joel Chandler Harris. These have long been considered entirely negro in origin, but the Tar Baby story, for example, is found in regions where the negro is a negligible factor in the population, as in Mexico and the Philippines.12 Espinosa and Boas have been able to prove that these stories are not at all negro in origin, but come from Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese knew the whole of the Guinea Coast of Africa as early as 1480, and it was they who carried these stories to the negroes, who, in turn, brought them to America. The Spaniards carried them directly to Mexico and to the Philippines. In the same way many

of the Indian tales of eastern Canada are found, on careful examination, to be the same French fables as those collected by La Fontaine in the seventeenth century. An Indian background and point of view disguise these ancient French tales until they are sometimes almost unrecognizable. com

It is not necessary for two peoples to be in the same stage of culture in order to share ideas, nor is it true that a more highly cultured people will never profit from customs of men on a lower level. Necessity makes borrowing possible, however different the planes of life may be. The spread of the corn culture of the American Indian among the early colonists of this country is a surprising example of this fact. The white settler "did not simply borrow the maize, seed and then in conformity with his already established agricultural methods, or on original lines, develop a maize culture of his own. In fact, he has no basis for any claims to originality except in the development of mechanical appliances." He planted four or five grains in hills about three feet apart, hoeing the earth around it. He husked it with a pin of bone or of wood. He placed it in cribs elevated from the ground. Still following the Indian customs, he used fish for fertilization, and his preparation of the corn and its cooking were still along aboriginal lines. Corn was unknown in the Old World prior to the discovery of America, but it is mentioned in Europe in 1539, and had reached as far as China only a few years later.13

The spread of the horse in America is another example, often cited, to show the rapid conquest of a new idea. The typical Indian of the Great Plains is almost always shown in painting and in sculpture as riding on a horse, and yet the horse was probably unknown among the buf