vii THE ANTIQUITY AND ORIGIN OF MAN 429 



it is stated that the mounds and earthworks of various kinds 

 in the State of Ohio alone amount to between eleven and 

 twelve thousand. In their habits, customs, religion, and arts, 

 they differed strikingly from all the Indian tribes; while 

 their love of art and of geometric forms, and their capacity 

 for executing the latter upon so gigantic a scale, render it 

 probable that they were a really civilised people, although the 

 form their civilisation took may have been very different from 

 that of later peoples, subject to very different influences and 

 the inheritors of a longer series of ancestral civilisations. 

 We have here, at all events, a striking example of the transi- 

 tion, over an extensive country, from comparative civilisation 

 to comparative barbarism, the former leaving no tradition and 

 hardly any trace of its influence on the latter. 



As Mr. Mott well remarks : " Nothing can be more striking 

 than the fact that Easter island and North America both give 

 the same testimony as to the origin of the savage life lound 

 in them, although in all circumstances and surroundings the 

 two cases are so different. If no stone monuments had been 

 constructed in Easter island, or mounds containing a few 

 relics saved from fire, in the United States, we might never have 

 suspected the existence of these ancient peoples." He argues, 

 therefore, that it is very easy for the records of an ancient 

 nation's life entirely to perish or to be hidden from observa- 

 tion. Even the arts of Nineveh and Babylon were unknown 

 only a generation ago, and we have only just discovered the 

 facts about the mound-builders of North America. 



But other parts of the American continent exhibit parallel 

 phenomena. Eecent investigations show that in Mexico, 

 Central America, and Peru, the existing race of Indians has 

 been preceded by a distinct and more civilised race. This 

 is proved by the sculptures of the ruined cities of Central 

 America, by the more ancient terra-cottas and paintings of 

 Mexico, and by the oldest portrait -pottery of Peru. All 

 alike show markedly non- Indian features, while they often 

 closely resemble modern European types. Ancient crania, 

 too, have been found in all these countries, presenting very 

 different characters from those of any of the existing indi- 

 genous races of America. 1 



1 Wilson's Prehistoric Man, 3d ed., vol. ii. pp. 125, 144. 



