Ancient Buried City May be Cradle of Civilisation

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17607, 24 October 1931, Page 9

Ancient Buried City May be Cradle of Civilisation

JURIED in the jungle of Honduras, . riven by earthquakes and guarded by hosts of venomous Teptiles and | insects, lies n city older than any ; other yet found in Central America, i So old is it that Mr. F. A. Mitchell- : Hedges, explorer for the British Museum, believes it to ! bo the origin from which tho later Mayan and Aztec cultures sprang; and fib' believes the country round about it id be one of the ancient cradles of mankind. ! Mr. Mitchell-Hedges, brown-skinned like one of „the Indians among whom he has worked for the past 17 years, was in Montreal recently. Ho is spending a holiday now, but next January will be returning to the ancient city, whose location he keeps guarded jealously. Not Dream City. ! It is no dream city; of that Mr. .Mitchell-Hedges has already shown proof, for last year lie brought to the Museum of the American India# over lOOt) pieces of pottery, fragments of fools and weapons, and ornaments froth the ruins Of the ancient city. Scientists have studied those. They have found them to differ entirely from flic relies .of other Indian civilisations discovered in the jungles of Central America. “It is old,” Mr. Mitchell-Hedges admitted guardedly when questioned about liis find. “It is so old that there are not even any date stones to be found in it; us far as 1 can say. There are no carvings of. the feathered serpent god of the Mayans whose cities wc have dated back to 000 B.C. It is older than any .of these. “Do you know,” lie wanned up to the subject, “I’m a little diffident about speaking of this because it seems so extraordinary. There is a wall about the city. Inside there are two'mounds; And these mounds have stories about them —exactly like Stonehenge! Impossible Theory.

“Nothing like it has yet been found in the three Americas.” The irifikfc often expressed opinion about, the origin of Indians in America is that thfiv migrated to this continent in the (linkages of the past from somewhere in Asia. And so the . interviewer asked Mr. Mitchell-Hedges whether lie believed the culture he has found to be indigenous, or to be something brought there by a wandering.people. “I know tlie argument,” he shot back at the questioner. “I know it. But how could a nomadic people have developed so great a knowledge df sculpture, painting, astronomy as we find in the ruins there? It is impossible to credit it. ‘ ‘ Do’ von know what, wc owe the Mayans and Aztecs, last of the chain of Conquerors living in Central America?” lie aslied. “Think it over. Wc got our cotton, our chocolate, our maize, bur tobacco, tritr indigo, quiniie, potatoes, cocaine, beans and many other things from thorny directly or indirectly.. “How do'you suppose these vegetables xvere turned to household uses except through so old a efihtiriu* ous culture as to make that of Europe paid into insignificance. I believe that Central America is one-of the cradles of the human idee, rind I think that the city I have discovered is perhaps tho focus of the culture which spread north and south from it.”

Strange Happenings, j Strange things have happened on the site of this ancient city, according iff Mr. Mitchell-Hedges. Earthquakes have torn rind tossed the masonry walls. They have opened great tracks, through tkc old city. They have elevated portions of it and turned others fiver. Tho work of destruction has boon aided by the jungle plants whose last growing roots have torn to pieces what other structures there were built of stones. “It’s a weird sort of place,” Mr. Mitchell-Hedges said reminiscently. “There is a three-acre patch ot lam.!, tlmt is a lot- like that ‘Lost World’ that Gonial Dfiyie wroth aljfiut. ■ “On this patch there are gigantic lizards with a spine that makes them look as if great combs for tlie hair arc growing out of their back-b&rics; j They ate 7ft. long, ” he continued. ‘ ‘ ‘ Thfiy rriust have been cut off ‘ frfiiri the rest of the world for thousands of years, for 1 cannot otherxvise understand how they cun have developed in such fashion;’” ! “You riibrih 1 they’iff" not fire-his-toric?” tho reporter asked. “No——not in - a sense,” Mr. , Mitehell-HedgeS replied. “They have : grown to their immense size, 1 believe, simply through the operation of the law of the- survival of thfi fittest. Only the biggest _ dries. Inffd each year, niid only tho biggest survived.' And now they’re seven footers and as ferocious us alligators:” ! Peculiar Animals.

j Animal life, according to tlie explorer, hits altogether received peculiar stimulation along that part of the Caribbean .from which he will make entrance to his secret city next Jauu“l Hayfi (fit tight tiifties therfi which woiff 'lift: ihritg from' front, to back arid fivei- 9ft. in width,” lib y uid. 1 hate found crabs 3ft; across, and m the higofins fd wards the interior there are Crawfish that - are .dt. long. And then the explorer was once more discussing' his city. 1 Ho has lidtl fixpoi’iorice in judging the ago ot tlie old walled towns buried under the jungle of Honduras anti Yucatan. lor 17 years he lias, bent collecting specimens for the, British and other muscums. In 1924 ho was one ol the eodikeovors of Lubanntriii, oldest Mitya city in British HohduHls, whose site lias been entirely taken over by tlio British Museum no#. “The only clue 1 have so 1m found