APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 January 1932, Page 1

APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

The capacity of the population of Europe for independent progress while in the copper and early bronze stage -—tile ‘•jialaeonietallie” stage as it might he called—appears to me to be demonstrated in the remarkable manner bv the remains of their architect-

ure. From the crannug to the elaborate pile-dwelling and from the rudest enclosure to the complex fortification of the terra mare, there is an advance which is obviously a native product. So with the sepulchral con-, structioiis; the stone cist, with or without a preservative or memorial cairn, grows into the chambered graves lodged in tumuli into sueii megalitliie edifices as the dromic vaults of Maes flow and New Grange; to culminate in the finished masonry ol the tombs of Mycenae, constructed on exactly the same plan. Can anyone looks at the varied series of forms which lie between the. primitive five or six flat stones fitted together into a mere box. and such a building as Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the result of foreign tuition? But j the men' who built Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly have built the so-called “treasure-house” of Mycenae with them.