INHABITANTS OF ARGENTINA. 405 



by great watercourses, and studded with vast lacustrine basins, which have long 

 disappeared. The rock inscriptions, which are very numerous along this route, 

 are diiïerent from those of the Peruvian Quichuas, and seem to belong to another 

 civilisation. Here, also, are seen the remains of extensive irrigation works, and 

 here have been found woven fabrics, stone, copper, bronze, and silver objects, all 

 bearing witness to a tolerably advanced culture, destroyed partly by wars Avaged 

 in prehistoric times, and partly also by the general desiccation of the land. 



Even as far south as Patagonia the Argentine regions appear to have been 

 formerly thickly peopled. Scarcely a district, however inhospitable it m-iy now 

 seem, but has yielded proofs of the migrations or long sojourn of vanished races. 

 At Ensenada potsherds have been dug up over 200 feet below the surface, and the 

 varying types of skulls, implements, and rock carvings show that these communi- 

 ties belonged to several stocks. Argentina is a vast necropolis of extinct popula- 

 tions, some of whom may now be represented by degenerate Yahgans, Alakalufs, 

 and other Fuegians. In the Samborombon bisin, south-east of Buenos Ay res, 

 Carles discovered near a megatherium a remarkable human skeleton with thirteen 

 dorsal vertebrae. 



In the Eio Negro valley Moreno has examined a large number of paraderos;* 

 as the sites abounding in prehistoric remains are called. They have yielded arrow- ■ 

 heads both of the jDaleolithic and neolithic ages, the former usually on the upper 

 slopes and terraces along the river banks, the latter strewn in great abundance 

 over the bottom-lands. Near Carmen, Hudson found some of the neolithic types 

 about half an inch long, " most exquisitely finished, with a fine serration, and 

 without exception, made of some beautiful stone — crystal, agate, and green, yellow 

 and horn-coloured flint. It v.as impossible to take half-a-dozen of these gems 

 of colour and workmanship in the hand and not be impressed at once with 

 the idea that beauty had been as much an aim to the worker as utility." f 



In the pampas region farther north archaeologists have discovered human 

 settlements of a some what. different type from the ordinary paraderos, and in some 

 respects resemble kitchen-middens. These certainly indicate the sites of human 

 encampments long occupied by primitive populations. The total absence of any 

 traces of disturbance altogether excludes the theory at first put forward that they 

 may have been the abodes, not of the living, but of the dead. Those found in many 

 parts of the province of Buenos Ayres have been full}^ described by Moreno and 

 Zeballos, while the attention of Ameghino has been more especially directed towards 

 the paraderos occurring along the banks of the Marco- Diaz, Liijan and other 

 streams. One of the paraderos in the Marco-Diaz valley covers a superficial area 

 of no less than 612 feet by 408 feet, and must have been occupi-ed either con- 

 tinuously or at intervals for countless generations. 



* This word, which is of constant occurrence in writings on the early history of man in Argentina 

 and Patagonia, is derived from the Spanish parar — to sojourn. The paraderos are generally supposed to 

 occupy the sites of ancient habitations or settlements, and this view cprtainly offers the best explanation 

 of the numerous traces of burnt earth strewn about, and apjjarently caused by the action of fire 

 kindled for cooking purposes. 



t Op. cit., p. 39. 



GO 



