If, as seems most likely, there was in South America an ancient
development of civilized human life, out of which arose the
civilizations found in Peru and Central America, its antiquity was much
greater than can be comprehended by the current chronologies. This,
however, can not make it improbable, for these chronologies are really
no more reasonable than the monkish fancies used in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries to explain these civilizations. We find the
hagiologists very absurd, but the condition of mind which made them
possible is closely akin to that which moves some men in our time to
deny or limit the past, and reject the results of any investigation
which tend to enlarge it. Rational inquiry constantly forces upon us the
suggestion that there was more in the unwritten history of the human
race than our inherited modes of thinking have allowed us to suppose,
and that the beginning of civilization is far more ancient than our long
accepted theories of antiquity are able to admit.
What may be discovered in South America by a more complete geological
and palaeontological investigation it is not now possible to say.
Professor Orton, in his recent book, "The Andes and the Amazon," far
exceeds Montesinos in his estimate of the antiquity of Peruvian
civilization. He says on this point:
"Geology and archaeology are combining to prove that Sorato and
Chimborazo have looked down upon a civilization far more ancient than
that of the Incas, and perhaps coeval with the flint-flakes of Cornwall
and the shell-mounds of Denmark. On the shores of Lake Titicaca are
extensive ruins which antedate the advent of Manco-Capac, and may be as
venerable as the lake-dwellings of Geneva. Wilson has traced six
terraces in going up from the sea through the province of Esmeraldas
toward Quito, and underneath the living forest, which is older than the
Spanish invasion, many gold, copper, and stone vestiges of a lost
population were found. In all cases these relics are situated below the
high-tide mark, in a bed of marine sediment, from which he infers that
this part of the country formerly stood higher above the sea. If this be
true, vast must be the antiquity of these remains, for the upheaval and
subsidence of the coast is exceedingly slow."--P. 109.
This refers to discoveries made on the coast of Ecuador in 1860, by
James S. Wilson, Esq. At various points along this coast he found
"ancient or fossil pottery, vessels, images," and other manufactured
articles, all finely wrought. Some of these articles were made of gold.
The most remarkable fact connected with them is that they were taken
from "a stratum of ancient surface earth" which was covered with a
marine deposit six feet thick. The geological formation where these
remains were found is reported to be "as old as the drift strata of
Europe," and "identical with that of Guayaquil in which bones of the
mastodon are met with." The ancient surface earth or vegetable mould,
with its pottery, gold-work, and other relics of civilized human life,
was, therefore, below the sea when that marine deposit was spread over
it. This land, after being occupied by men, had subsided and settled
below the ocean, remained there long enough to accumulate the marine
deposit, and again been elevated to its former position above the sea
level. Since this elevation, forests have been established over it
which are older than the Spanish Conquest, and now it is once more
subsiding. In 1862, at a meeting of the Royal Geological Society, Sir
Roderick Murchison spoke of these discoveries as follows:
"The discoveries Mr. Wilson has made of the existence of the works of
man in a stratum of mould beneath the sea level, and covered by several
feet of clay, the phenomenon being persistent for sixty miles, are of
the highest interest to physical geographers and geologists. The facts
seem to demonstrate that, within the human period, the lands on the west
coast of Equatorial America were depressed and submerged, and that after
the accumulation of marine clays above the terrestrial relics the whole
coast was elevated to its present position."
Assuming the facts to be as Mr. Wilson reports (and they have not been
called in question), it follows that there was human civilization to a
certain extent in South America at the time of the older stone age of
Western Europe. The oldest Peruvian date of Montesinos is quite modern
compared with this. The fact may be considered in connection with
another mentioned in the section on American Ethnology, namely, that the
most ancient fauna on this continent, man probably included, is that of
South America. But, without regard to what may be signified by these
discoveries of Mr. Wilson, there is good reason for believing that the
Peruvian civilization was much more ancient than it has been the fashion
to admit.
Peru would now be a very different country if the Spaniards had been
sufficiently controlled by Christianity and civilization to treat the
Peruvians justly, and seek nothing more than friendly intercourse with
them. But they went there as greedy buccaneers, unscrupulous robbers,
and brought every thing to ruin. At no time since the Spanish Conquest
has the country been as orderly, as prosperous, or as populous as they
found it. It has fallen to a much lower condition. Industry and thrift
have been supplanted by laziness and beggarly poverty. Ignorance and
incapacity have taken the place of that intelligence and enterprise
which enabled the old Peruvians to maintain their remarkable system of
agriculture, complete their great works, and made them so industrious
and skillful in their manufactures. The region covered by the Peruvian
empire has not half as many people now as it had in the time of the
Incas. Is it possible to imagine the present inhabitants of Ecuador,
Peru, and Bolivia cultivating their soil with intelligent industry,
building aqueducts five hundred miles long, and constructing
magnificently paved roads through the rocks and across the ravines of
the Andes, from Quito to Chili? One of the scholars connected with the
scientific expedition which visited South America in 1867, describing
the ancient greatness and present inferior condition of Quito, exclaims,
"May the future bring it days equal to those when it was called the
'City of the Incas!'" He might appropriately utter a similar wish for
the whole country.