CHAPTER XIX
CORRELATION OF CLASSIFICATIONS
We have now given a descriptive account of the facts constituting our subject, and with this preliminary task ended, may turn to a few more serious problems. We have succeeded in classifying the minor social units, according to culture data, language, and somatic characters. Also, it has been possible to group geographically the known archæological artifacts resulting in a distinct culture classification. The general impression prevails that all of these classifications are independent of each other. The facts in the case are that each system developed in its own way and largely at the hands of specialists. The result has, on the whole, been detrimental to anthropology, because the tendency has been to diverge into uncoördinated sciences, as linguistics, archæology, ethnology, and physical anthropology. Such differentiation developed partisans for each classification, whose controversies have obscured the problem rather than otherwise. Thus, the linguist asserts that no one can do anything until he learns native languages, because they are the keys to the whole subject; the archæologist insists that his is the main road to travel; the ethnologist belittles the claims of both; while the physical anthropologist looks down upon all. Fortunately, this condition is passing and the coming generation of anthropologists is facing the synthetic problems upon which the future of our science depends.
Such broader synthetic work must, in the nature of the case, begin with the correlation of the four great groups of data we have so far discussed independently. Each has developed a classification based upon geographical distribution and in this direction lies our first task. As may be anticipated, any such attempt to correlate these four great systems of classification will meet with opposition, for there is a deep-rooted belief that there are no such correlations. But let us ignore this proposition for the present, and examine the case on its merits.
