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With reference to the ancestors of the native tribes, and their probable origin, the following syllabus of Charles Hallock’s paper in the American Antiquarian is interesting:

The Indians, or Indigenes, of both North and South America, originated from a civilization of high degree which occupied the subequatorial belt some ten thousand years ago, while the glacial sheet was still on. Population spread northward as the ice receded. Routes of exodus diverging from the central point of departure are plainly marked by ruins and lithic records. The subsequent settlements in Arizona, Mexico, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California indicate the successive stages of advance, as well as the persistent struggle to maintain the ancient civilization against reversion and the catastrophes of nature. The varying architecture of the valleys, cliffs, and mesas is an intelligible expression of the exigencies which stimulated the builders. The gradual distribution of population over the higher latitudes in after years was supplemented by accretions from Europe and Northern Asia centuries before the coming of Columbus. Wars and reprisals were the natural and inevitable results of a mixed and degenerated population with different dialects. The mounds which cover the midcontinental areas, isolated and in groups, tell the story thereof. The Korean immigration of the year 544, historically cited, which led to the founding of the Mexican empire in 1325, was but an incidental contribution to the growing population of North America. So also were the very much earlier migrations from Central America by water across the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and Arkansas.