406 AMAZONIA AND lA PLATA. 



Numerous anitnal remains, often covering a considerable space, are here and 

 there found scattered about in the vicinity of tliese prehistoric settlements. "The 

 long bones are split, others show grooves and cuts ; nearly all have been subjected 

 to the action of fire. With these bones have been picked up stone iinplements, 

 chiefly arrow-points and fragments of cknnsy and badiy-baked pottery, showing, 

 however, traces of artificial colouration. Heaps of burnt earth and charcoal cinders 

 tell clearly of the hearths of men. 



"All the bones, whether of mammuls or birds, are oE species such as the deer 

 or llama (huanaco) still extant in South America ; nowhere are any bones found, 

 such as those of frequent occurrence in the pampas formation, belonging to extinct 

 animals. The paraderos must not therefore be confounded with these formations, 

 and their much more modern character brings them near to that of the ordinary 

 shell-heaps. 



" Recent discoveries hive lately confirmed this conclusioa. Excavations in 

 a tunmlus of elliptical form (260 by 105 feet and 8 feet high) on the Parana, 

 near the port of Camj)ana, have brought to light a great many objects which bear 

 witness to an advanced state of culture. There are weapons and tools of quartz 

 or of blue granite, often of remarkable workmanship, hand-mills very like those 

 still in use in the interior of Africa, implements of deer-horn {cervus rufus and 

 cerviis campesfris), whistles of venado-w^ood, and above all, a considerable number 

 of frao-raents of pottery, very siperior in execution to any hitherto noticed. Some 

 of these fragments are coloured red, others are decorated with designs or orna- 

 mentation. Dr. Zeballos speaks of more than 3,000 potsherds, amongst them 

 twenty o/las or jars still intact. 



" Amongst these pieces of pottery must be mentioned some very close imitations 

 of animal forms, especially a parrot's head, very true to life. The works of man 

 lav mixed together in a considerable accumulation of large pieces of charcoal, fish 

 and mammal bones. It is evident that this mound concealed one or more primi- 

 tive hearths, and that these hearths, in accordance with a custom common to 

 many different races, afterwards became burial-places ; the discover}^ of several 

 human skeletons leaves no doubt on this point."* 



At the arrival of the Europeans early in the sixteenth century, Argentina — 

 from the Bolivian plateaux to the Austral seas — was peopled by a multitude of 

 tribes bearing difi'erent names, but belonging in reality to a small number of 

 distinct ethnical groups. The north-western region belonged to the Calchaquis 

 of Quichua culture, speech, and perhaps origin. In the Mesopotamia between 

 the Parana and Uruguay the Guarani yvere dominant, and branches of this 

 widely-diffused nation extended beyond the rivers far into the pampas; south 

 of Campana, Estanislao Zaballos discovered a vast Guarani barrow containing 

 twenty-seven skeletons, and the local nomenclature shows that they reached 

 southwards, even bej'ond the Plate estuary as far as the Pio Salado and Sambo- 

 rombon Bay. The Querandi, who inflicted such a disastrous defeat on the 



* De Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, p. 54. 



