CHAPTER VII.

PREHISTORIC MAN IN AMERICA.

M. ALBERT GAUDRY and Mr. Marsh maintain that the vast continent discovered by Columbus is not really as recent as it is generally said and supposed to be, and I am inclined to be of their opinion. A number of incontestable proofs justify this opinion.

The Indian redskin living in a state of barbarism at the time of the conquest cannot be called the primitive American. Nor were the luxuriant forests where he hunted his prey truly primæval, for they were preceded by other forests, which themselves did not deserve the name of virgin, since they had already been trodden by the foot of man, whose remains lie buried beneath their own. At New Orleans, on the banks of the Mississippi, an entire human skeleton was found buried beneath four ancient forests. Dr. Dowler attributes an age of 57,000 years to these remains. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of these figures, but if this single fact were established beyond dispute, it would in itself be a sufficient proof of the great antiquity of the human race in America.

Other discoveries of no less weight corroborate our opinion. A pelvis was found near Natchez in the loess of the Mississippi valley, in company with the mastodon c the Ohio, the megalonyx of Jefferson, and other species long since extinct. Human bones were extracted by Agassiz from a calcareous conglomerate which forms part of a coral reef in Florida, and of which the learned professor estimates the age to be more than 10,000 years. If these proofs are not enough, we may

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mention in addition the human remains found by Lund in the caves of Brazil, with those of the glyptodon, the megatherium, and a number of fossil animals with whom man was contemporary; and the recent discovery of a human skull picked up at Jacksonville, on the banks of the Illinois, 100 feet above the present level of the river, and remarkable, like that of Neanderthal, for the deep grooves made by the muscles, and the prominence of the bones above the orbits.

Lastly, at a depth of about nine feet below the surface of the soil, in the pampas of Mercedes, near Buenos Ayres, some human bones were recently found in company with rudely carved flints and remains of extinct species (Eutatus, Hoplophorus, Reithrodon, Hesperomys, &c.). In one of the layers overlying the above mentioned one, bones of the mylodon and of the glyptodon were also found.'

The products of the industry of this race, which may really be termed priniitive, resemble in almost every respect those of European man in the height of the stone age; only instead of flint, rare or absent in certain districts of America, the Indian used granite, syenite, jade, porphyry, quartz, and especially obsidian, a vitreous rock which abounds in Mexico and elsewhere. Splinters of this rock, skilfully obtained by means of percussion, were employed for the fabrication of knives sharp as razors, of arrow and lance heads, fish-hooks, harpoons, in a word of numerous implements similar to those used in Europe by the contemporaries of the mammoth and the cave bear. It is worthy of note, however, that neither axes nor stone hammers pierced with a hole for the handle, have hitherto been found in America. Some of these stone implements are merely more or less rudely carved; some are perfectly

1 I am indebted for the knowledge of this important discovery to the kindness of Mr. Cope of Philadelphia, who has done me the honour of sending to me, with other extremely interesting works of which he is the author, a pamphlet published in December, 1878, in which the learned American palæontologist gives, after the drawing of Professor Ameghino, a section of the stratum in which the fossil man of Mercedes was found, and also a list of the extinct animals whose bones were mixed with his.

polished, such as the fine axes of green jade found in the country of the Carabees, which are now in the Museum of Antiquities in Copenhagen. Some of these implements are of very uncommon form, and we see in these the art of shaping by percussion carried to a wonderful degree of perfection. Such are for instance the flints of which we borrow the drawings from Dr. Wilson ('Prehistoric Man') and of which one is a weapon toothed like a saw, pointed

at either end, and measuring more than sixteen inches in length; the other is in the form of a crescent furnished with jutting points, and somewhat resembling certain halberds of modern date (figs. 58 and 59). These two specimens of the primitive art of the New World were found in 1794 in a cave of the Bay of Honduras. But the most striking feature in the primitive weapons and tools found in America is, we repeat, their perfect resemblance with those of the European caves; they present the

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same forms, only a little less varied, and served consequently the same purposes. The work of man in these widely separated epochs offers in both worlds the most perfect analogy. We are therefore forced to conclude that the age of stone is not the peculiar apanage of any one people, but that it represents a stage in human culture which at periods more or less remote occurs in every part of the earth.

Articles of the toilet and ornaments, and some fragments of pottery, evidently dating from the prehistoric epoch, have been found in Mexico and other parts of the American continent. Obsidian beads, intended to be suspended from the lips, pearls, perforated teeth and shells for necklaces or for ornamenting the dress, clay buttons baked or dried in the sun, round mirrors of pyrites, &c. &c., all of great geological antiquity, were also found in different parts of the continent, which we persist in calling the New World. Its extinct fauna and flora also combat this theory, and the great number of different races scat tered over the surface of the same continent, and the still greater variety of dialects and languages, which number more than twelve hundred, are proofs sufficient to establish and confirm our opinion.

The study of the American monuments would, if we could undertake it, furnish new proofs in favour of the great antiquity of man in the New World. Without counting the palaces whose magnificent ruins astonish the traveller, and the cyclopean constructions, similar to the European monuments very incorrectly styled Pelasgic, the mounds of Ohio and Yucatan furnish very valuable treasures of great interest to archæology. Some details respecting these mounds, which were intended for different purposes, must find place here. But we must first say a word or two about the Chulpas.

I. THE CHULPAS OF PERU AND BOLIVIA.

Burial places dating from a period anterior to the Incas, and resembling the dolmens and cromlechs of the European continent, and the nuraghi of Sardinia, are

found in Peru and Bolivia. They are there known under the name of Chulpas. They are burial crypts built of great upright stones, supporting the enormous slabs which form the roof. Other chulpas, of more recent date than the former, are surrounded by a wall built in the figure of a square or a circle, of which the height varies from 30 to 100 feet, a species of tower, narrowed at the base and slightly enlarged towards the summit, which is terminated by a cornice in the case of a square tower, and by a rounded dome when it is circular. The stones of which these monuments are built are usually hewn on the outer face of the building, and are held together by means of a stiff clay. Other Peruvian chulpas, built of unhewn stones, are plastered over with stucco and painted both outside and inside.

As a rule these tombs contain only one burial chamber, or sometimes two placed one above the other, and vaulted. More or less numerous niches in a single or double row, and hollowed in the thickness of the wall, were destined for the reception of the dead bodies, which were placed in a sitting or crouching position.

These monuments, whether simple dolmens, cromlechs, or burial towers, which are scattered over the vast plateau of the Andes, are the work of a single people, who gradually improved with time; their primitive civilisation seems to have passed through stages analogous to those of the builders of the megalithic monuments of the Old World, which appear to have served them as models. This strange people was probably indigenous, and held the land. previous to the arrival of the Incas.'

II. THE MOUNDS AND THE MOUND BUILDERS.

We must attribute to the prehistoric ages of the New World a series of strange monuments, of varied form and gigantic size, the work of a people of mysterious origin and unknown race, usually designated by Anglo-American avants as mound builders. These mounds, species of

For fuller details see E. G. Squier, The Primeval Monuments of Peru, compared with those in other parts of the World. American Naturalist, p. 518. Salem, 1870.