AN EARLY CIVILISATION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16987, 10 March 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN EARLY CIVILISATION .

GREAT CITIES IN THE C PACIFIC. C ROMANCE OF ISLAND > UKOUPS. \ A mid the wealth of historical in- £ terest that belongs to other parts of the world, Australians (says rne Svciney are orten apt to forget , that wi£hm a. short distance of their t own shores there are places which ar t I no less Jacking in romance than are I those which are thousands of miles .li? tant and of wh.ch they hive heard a great deal more. Pew know, for example, that onlv a couple ot days’ steam to the north i, to bo found the remnants cf an an- ! cient civilisation, about which abso- I lutely nothing is known at the present \ day and the only remaining traces ol 1 which are two or three ruined cities, the size and general nature of which I however, indicate that in their da> they were the home of a civilisation as g.eat and as flourishing as any of ! these which inhabited the Weste-n world. The site of these is in those islanrs known as the Gilbert Group, a shore distance north of the Equator ana peopled by a mere handful of white men, mostly officials, and by a fast-tO’ing-out native race I SCENE OF HEAYT MIGRATION. ■ Probably less geographical and his- i tortcai research nas been earned ! m connection with me Pacuic tl.an ' with any other quarter ol mo clone i although it oilers enormous lielus i„ j this aiiectitm. Undiscovered unt'l 1 comparatively late in the history o. man, it i s only recently that scien tists have louna out that at one period it uas tlu. l scene ol the greatest migra- I tmn in the story of the human race and that even before the birth of rho Greek and Egyptian civilisation in til Mest it was crossed from the direction of Asia and Europe by a peonlo ot whom practically ail traces hare ! long since vanished. Who this peo.nc j were and from whence they came arc ! m.ittei -a that are still in dispute i amongst anthropologists and ethnoiog- !

I . sts * i l >,lt ll,er<a remains at least omlacr that, if it was not white, it v. ,-. at the hast- Caucasian in origin. Ino migration in question was not n hriiek one, but one probably thit took nearly a thousand rears to a complish. This is established by + aV' iact that while it was in progress those who took part in it often "halted f.e long enough to build cities and ere i:e communities that survived until ion a I terwa rds. One of these resting places was nc-ir Ponape, in the Caroline Islands w!d',another was on a small unnamed island, a. few miles from the Gilbert Group. In spite of the present i-i significance of the latter, it is there that the greatest monument of this lost race remains, for it contains the ruins cf a city which in its heyday of prosperity must have held a comparative!y large population. Practically all that is known about this place is duo to the researches l Professor MacMillan Brown, of New Zealand, who, in the course of sever il years’ residence, uncovered a good de n which tells us of the life and habits of the people who dwelt in it. One of the most curious tilings ahour if n ! that it was evidently inhabited by j the one a •dominant niu! the other a I captive people, for part of the ci(, I consists ol what are iinniistah-il.lv aceommrdation for more than ten thousand persons, who. it would pear, were engaged principally in en gineermg works. such as hnibli , ■ breakwaters which still remain to k„' ;i hack the encroaching «on« ' t fn back of the city were enormous l-nild ings which may have ebon used granaries, although there b no drl'iii; evidence that agriculture over cxi<t .1 there on a large scale. AX IXTKRESTIXG TTTEOBY. Scattered through both the Gilb • and Caroline Islands are or her siniila* ruins, which were evidently cutpos; or the one main centre, constructed the race inhabiting tlie latter increased and spread out. In one of these in 1011 was discovered a small tablet written m characters since pronounced to he ct Tu what is contained in this tablet be ! discovered it is probable that the whole j mystery as to who the city-builders were, whence they came, and \vhy they j did not remain where they had settled, ; would be cleared up. So far every ‘ effort to translate :t has been unsuc- j cessful, and the only thing established about it is that the language in which it is written bears a close resemblance to the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt I One interesting theory about this un. known race is that it was the original forerunners of the Mavas who were the ancestors of the later Incas ami Aztecs in Peru and Mexico, and that, continuing its journey across the Pacific Ocean, it eventually reached South America and was responsible for the lirst peopling of that continent. There is much to bear this out, ranging from a similarity of habit and custom that stretches right across the ocean from Asia to America, n 6 well as a close resemblance between some of the languages spoken in both the former and the latter continents even at the present day. a resemblance which would seem to hint at the two possessing a Jt is unfortunate, however, that the migrants of the Pacific have left behind them rio enduring records from which tlv* story of the human race may bo completed its gaps tilled in. Beyond the ruined cities of the northern islands they have left no monuments or glyphic writings at all, for the stones on Easter Island were erected by a later race, although probably by one that was an offshoot of the main migrating stream. But this part of the world has lately been attracting the attention more and more of scientists and ethnologists, and it may happen that sonic clue to the mystery may yet be discovered.