332 THE AMERICAN MTGEATION. 



and have sunk into the night of oblivion without leaving a trace of their exist- 

 ence ; without a memorial through which we might have at least learned their 

 names. Those nations only, which, by tradition, written records, monuments, 

 or whatever other means first guaranteed the remembrance of their own exist- 

 ence, belong to the domain of history, and history which, to be true, accepts 

 nothing but what is actually known, points to those as the primitive races which 

 first transmitted a knowledge of themselves ; time begins for us where the 

 chronology of such nations takes its rise. But all these so-called aborigines 

 might be only the remainder of previously existing races, of whom, again, we 

 know not whether they were indeed the first occupants of the land.* In truth, 

 we meet in America, at more than one point, with traces of a rich civilization, 

 proceeding demonstratively from much earlier epochs than the tribal migration 

 itself ; as, for example, in upper Peru the gorgeous structures of the Aymaras, 

 near Tiahuanuco, on the beautiful shores of Lake Titicaca ; the mysterious 

 monuments of Central America, between Chiapas and Yucatan, of which the 

 buildings of Palenque constitute the most celebrated representative; the earth 

 and stone works of a people distinct from the above, on the banks of the Missis- 

 sippi and Ohio. 



These facts, however, should not surprise us. We need only cast a glance 

 at Europe itself. We know that the migration in middle Europe encountered 

 races which had been preceded by the powerful Celts, a people widely spread, 

 and endowed with a certain degree of culture, yet destined almost Avholly to 

 disappear, except at a few points whither the stream of migration failed to pene- 

 trate. But those great stone monuments which we find scattered from the most 

 northern districts of Scotland to Portugal, from Courland to the western parts 

 of France, and which, under various denominations, according to their form, 

 are known as dolmens, menhirs, cromlechs, cairns, and giants' graves, whose 

 occurrence in Africa has been recently demonstrated, and is asserted as regards 

 even Syria and the Deccan. These all point to a still older pre-Oeltish people, 

 w^ho, less cultivated than the preceding Celts, remain to us as great a mystery as 

 the " mound-builders " of the Mississippi. The Celts, on their part also, wan- 

 dered out of Asia into Europe, and probably met with these dolmen-builders, 

 respecting whom we are at a loss to know whether they are to be referred to 

 the Danish kiokkenmoddings and the Swiss pile-buildings, or whether these 

 most ancient memorials of human society belonged to a still older people. t 



These obscure periods of man's history in the old world have, as is well 

 known, been distributed by European archeologists, in conformity with the 

 most important remains of their industry, into the epochs of stone, of bronze, 

 and of iron. Since heaps of shells, like those of the Danish coast, are found on 

 the seashore in Newfoundland, at St. Simon's island on the coast of Georgia, 

 and recently near Guayaquil in Equador, it is not without just grounds inferred 

 that the same gradations of development which have given names to the above 

 epochs will be also recognized among the aboriginal Americans. The duration 

 of these periods would of course be very different, and their termination and 

 commencement, respectively, be later than was the case in Europe. In Asia, 

 undoubtedly, at least among some nations, the bronze epoch was preceded by a 

 period of copper, which seems to have been wanting in Europe. The admirable 



* Manuel Orozco j Berra: Geograjia de las Lenguas y Carta Ethnografica dc Mexico, 

 Mexico, 1865. I call the attention of all tlie friends of linguistic science to this elaborate 

 and most meritorious work of my colleague, and add, that for the investigator of American 

 history it is quite indispensable. 



t Upon this interesting subject, which has in late times given rise to renewed discussion, 

 recourse may be had to the suggestive writings of the Swedish naturalist, E. Desor, in the 

 Augsburg and Cologne Gazettes, 186.5, wherein he propounds his well known Tamhu theory, 

 which supposes the dolmens to have been the work, not of the Celts, but of the Tamhu tribes 

 of Africa. Opposed to this are the opinions of my esteemed friend, Dr. Carl Andree, of 

 Bremen, which he has communicated to the public through the Globus, edited by himself, 

 and which present views worthy of the highest consideration. 



