Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
In other parts of America prehistoric races have left behind them huge
earthworks, lofty masses which were probably fortifications (Fig. 5),
temples, and sepulchral monuments (Fig. 6). These earthworks extend
throughout North America from the Alleghany Mountains to the Atlantic,
from the great lakes of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The name of the
people who erected them is lost, and we must be content with that of
Mound Builders, which commemorate their vast undertakings.
[Illustration: 7.]
Ground plan of a pueblo of the Mac-Elmo Valley.
At a period probably nearer our own, Arizona and New Mexico were
occupied by other maces, who built the so-called _pueblos_, which were
regular phalansteries, or communal dwellings, each member of the tribe
having to be content with one wretched little cell (Fig. 7). At some
distance from the men of the _pueblos_ lived the Cliff Dwellers, about
whom we know next to nothing; a few stone weapons and countless
fragments of pottery being all they have left behind them. These men
established themselves in situations which are now inaccessible, hewing
out a dwelling in the rocks on the mountains (Figs. 8 and 9) with
wonderful perseverance, and closing up the approaches with adobes or
sun-dried bricks, making incredible efforts to obtain for their
families what must have been at the best but a precarious shelter.46
These prehistoric races were succeeded in America by the Toltecs,
Aztecs, Chibcas, and Peruvians, all known in history, though their
origin is as much involved in obscurity as that of their predecessors.
Temples, palaces, and magnificent monuments tell of the wealth which
gold gives, a wealth, alas, which also enervated the vital forces, so
that the Spanish and Portuguese met with but little serious resistance
in their rapid conquests.
[Illustration: 8.]
Cliff-house on the Rio Mancos.
[Illustration: 9.]
House in a rock of the Montezuma Cañon.
Such are the facts with which we have to deal. In the following
chapters we shall consider more at length the problems they present,
but already we are led to one important conclusion: in every part of
the globe, in every latitude, in every climate, worked flints, whether
but roughly chipped or elaborately polished, present analogies which
must strike the most superficial observer. “We find them,” remarks an
American author, “in the tumuli of Siberia, in the tombs of Egypt, in
the soil of Greece, beneath the rude monuments of Scandinavia; but
whether they come front Europe or Asia, from Africa or America, they
are so much alike in form, in material, and in workmanship, that they
might easily be taken for the work of the same men.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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