SHETRONE] CULTURE PROBLEM IN OHIO ARCHAEOLOGY 145
Few areas, however, are so richly supplied with anthropological data as the example cited. In the eastern and southeastern districts, where white settlement was earliest, the anthropologist finds the usual archaeological evidence and rather abundant his- toric record, but a dearth of material for ethnological study. Pro- ceeding westward, with the archaeological factor about constant, the ethnological element is augmented in approximately the same ratio that the historical is diminished.
The Ohio area, unfortunately, presents something of an anomaly, since ethnological data, in so far as its native tribes are concerned, are entirely lacking, while historic record, at first thought, would seem hardly more promising. Maps depicting the early linguistic areas of the United States 1 attribute the northern and northeastern portions of the state to the Iroquoian linguistic family, and the remaining one third to the Algonquian; but when reference is had to the distribution of this territory among specific Indian tribes, 2 we are confronted by blank space the great Ohio country appear- ing as a no-man's-land, without hint of the lively human drama enacted on its soil in pre-Columbian times. It is hardly necessary to recall the fact that none of the several historic Ohio tribes was native to the state. All of them the Miami, Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa, Seneca, Mingo and others had entered the territory within historic times, as a result, directly or indirectly, of unsettlement attending European colonization. Apparently none of them arrived sufficiently early to leave a very definite impression on the archaeology of the state.
The story of these exotic tribes during the years of their sojourn in Ohio is aside from a discussion of the native prehistoric tribes; but intervening between the probable time of disappearance of the latter and arrival of the former, there is a gap of upward of a cen- tury's duration, completely breaking the sequence of aboriginal occupation of the state, which properly may be considered in con- nection with the prehistoric period.
��1 Powell: Map of Linguistic Families; insert, vol. i.
2 Wissler: Map of North American Indian Tribes; fig. 103.
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