In further support of these views, we think we have grounds for asserting that we have veritable historical accounts of the Eskimo people slowly retiring before the aggressions of their Indian foes. It is no longer doubted but that Norsemen, as early as the year 1000, made voyages of discovery along the coast of North America, as far south as Rhode Island: they called the country Vineland. It is true that the Icelandic accounts of these expeditions contain some foolish and improbable statements; but so do the writings of Cotton Mather, made many years later.
These accounts refer but very briefly to the inhabitants they saw, but enough is given to show that the people were not Indians, but Eskimos. The language used is: “The men were small of stature and fierce, having a bushy head of hair, and very great eyes, and wide cheeks.”71 Their small size is frequently referred to, which would surely not be the case if they were describing the Algonkins that the English colonists found in the same section of country many years later. To the same effect is the assertion that the Eskimos did not reach Greenland until the middle of the fourteenth century.72 The traditions of the Tuscarawas Indians that place their arrival on the Atlantic coast in the year 1300, also refer to a tribe of people that were at least much like the Eskimos.73
Thus we are led, step by step, to the recognition of a Paleolithic Age in America, and finally to the belief that the descendants of these people were Eskimos. We at once notice the coincidence of these results with some of the conclusions of Prof. Dawkins, of England, and it is desirable to trace a little farther the points of resemblance and difference between this age in America and in Europe. In this latter country we have seen the Paleolithic Age can be divided into two stages, or epochs, during which different races inhabited the country. The first, or the epoch of the men of the River Drift, long preceded the epoch of the Cave-men. It was those latter tribes only that Mr. Dawkins connects with the Eskimos.
We have not yet found evidence in this country that points to such a division of the Paleolithic Age. We have no relics of Cave-men as distinguished from the men of the River Drift. It is true, we are not lacking evidence of the use of caves by various tribes,74 but there is nothing to show that such use was very ancient, or that the people were properly Paleolithic. We can not say what future discoveries will unfold, but as yet we have only implements of the River Drift type, and these are the men Dr. Abbott considers to be the ancestors of the Eskimos. In this country, then, we have shown the existence of but one race of men in the same stage of culture as the men of the River Drift, but of the same race as the men of the Cave. These results may be cited as an argument in favor of those scholars who think that the men of the River Drift and the men of the Cave were in reality the same people.75