ABSTRACT
Some ethnologists, as we have seen, assume that the magnitude of distribution of a culture trait is an index of its age, though few state the principle in the form in which they imply it. Thus the fact that the making of fire is known in every tribe is said to indicate its great antiquity, and the widespread use of stone implements by primitive man is considered an indication of their great age. Widely distributed stories or plots carry the same implication: “If the myth be one which encounters us in every quarter, nay in every obscure nook of the globe, we may plausibly regard it as ancient.” 1 In the realm of material culture the same principle is assumed to hold: “The natural conclusion would be that the more widely distributed spur [on Eskimo harpoons] is by far the older form and the restricted screw is the more recent.” 2 “In general the larger the area of distribution, the older we may judge the trait to be.” 3 Certainly in many instances the age of a trait is a function of the magnitude of its distribution, yet instances to the contrary are so numerous that one must doubt the validity of using distribution as a criterion of age. In the higher cultures the opportunity for the spread of traits is greater than among primitive peoples, but the conditions are probably not essentially different, and the rapid diffusion of traits in civilization has a prototype in the slow percolation in savagery. However that may be, inference of the development of traits in the non-historical cultures must be based on the known culture development in some area, primitive or advanced, or facts cannot check fancy. In order, therefore, to test the validity of magnitude of distribution as an index to age, we selected at random the traits referred to in Chap. II, IV, IX, and XXI of James H. Breasted, “Ancient Times” (Boston, 1916). The random selection yielded the following: Bronze, mud-brick huts, irrigation canals, phalanx, split wheat, plow, wheel, use of the horse, battering ram, coinage, concept of last judgment, cuneiform writing, town walls, market-place, settlements, roofs, metal, migrations, families, carts, business, merchants, books—in all, twenty-three. The relative distribution of the first three, bronze, mud-brick huts, and irrigation canals, does not remain constant. By about 3000 B. C. mud-brick huts and irrigation canals were more widely distributed than bronze; but by 100 B. C. the distribution of bronze over the Mediterranean and contiguous areas was greater than the distribution of mud-brick huts or irrigation canals; and a similar statement applies to the next three traits of material culture—split wheat, the plow, and the wheel. In the early centuries of the Bronze age the distribution of split wheat about the Mediterranean area, including the Swiss lake dwellings, was more extensive than that of either the plow or the wheel. Subsequently, however, the area of distribution of split wheat was less than that of either the plow or the wheel. The plow is probably older, and at one time was more widely distributed than the wheel, but by the beginning of the Christian era the wheel was more widely distributed. The next three features, namely, use of the horse, battering ram, coinage, likewise vary in relative distribution during sucessive centuries.
