The Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Observations on the Ethnography and
Archaeology of the American Aborigines, by Samuel George Morton

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Title: Some Observations on the Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines

Author: Samuel George Morton

Release Date: June 24, 2009 [EBook #29215]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note

A number of typographical errors have been maintained in this version of
this book. They have been marked with a [TN-#], which refers to a
description in the complete list found at the end of the text.

SOME OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
ETHNOGRAPHY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
OF THE
AMERICAN ABORIGINES.

BY

SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M. D.,

Author of the Crania Americana, Crania AEygptiaca, &c.

EXTRACTED FROM THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, VOL. II, SECOND SERIES.

NEW HAVEN:
PRINTED BY B. L. HAMLEN,
Printer to Yale College.

1846.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN
ABORIGINES.

Nothing in the progress of human knowledge is more remarkable than the
recent discoveries in American archaeology, whether we regard them as
monuments of art or as contributions to science. The names of Stephens
and Norman will ever stand preeminent for their extraordinary
revelations in Mexico and Yucatan; which, added to those previously made
by Del Rio, Humboldt, Waldeck and D'Orbigny in these and other parts of
our continent, have thrown a bright, yet almost bewildering light, on
the former condition of the western world.

Cities have been explored, replete with columns, bas-reliefs, tombs and
temples; the works of a comparatively civilized people, who were
surrounded by barbarous yet affiliated tribes. Of the builders we know
little besides what we gather from their monuments, which remain to
astonish the mind and stimulate research. They te