How long a time has elapsed since the Mound-builders abandoned their works? Here again a minimum estimate only can be sought. No work is more enduring than an embankment of earth. There is no positive internal proof that they were not standing one, five, or ten thousand years ago. The evidences of an ancient abandonment of the works, or serious decline of the builders' power, are as follows:—1st, the fact that none of them stand on the last-formed terrace of the rivers, most on the oldest terrace, and that those on the second bear in some cases marks of having been invaded by water. The rate of terrace-forming varies on different streams, and there are no sufficient data for estimating in years the time required for the formation of any one of the terraces, at least scientific men are careful not to give a definite opinion in the matter; but it is evident that each required a very long period, and the last one a much longer time than any of the others, on account of the gradual longitudinal leveling of the river-beds. 2d. The complete disappearance of all wooden structures, which must have been of great solidity. 3d. The advanced state of decomposition of human bones in a soil well calculated for their preservation. Skeletons are found in Europe well preserved at a known age of eighteen hundred years. 4th. The absence of the Mound-builders from the traditions of modern tribes. Nothing would seem more likely to be preserved in mythic or historic traditions than contact with a superior people, and the mounds would serve to keep the traditions alive. 5th. The fact that the monuments were covered in the seventeenth century with primitive forests, uniform with those which covered the other parts of the country. In this latitude the age of a forest tree may be much more accurately determined than in tropical climates; and trees from four to five hundred years old have been examined in many well-authenticated cases over mounds and embankments. Equally large trees in all stages of decomposition were found at their feet on and under the ground, so that the abandonment of the works must be dated back at least twice the actual age of the standing trees. It is a fact well known to woodsmen that when cultivated land is abandoned the first growth is very unlike the original forest, both in the species and size of the trees, and that several generations would be required to restore the primitive timber. Consequently a thousand years must have passed since some of the works were abandoned. The monuments of the Mississippi present stronger internal evidence of great antiquity than any others in America, although it by no means follows that they are older than Palenque and Copan. The height of the Mound-builders' power should not, without very positive external evidence, be placed at a later date than the fifth or sixth century of our era.
CHAPTER XIV.
PERUVIAN ANTIQUITIES.
Two Epochs of Peruvian Civilization—Aboriginal Government, Religion, and Arts—Contrasts—The Huacas—Human Remains—Articles of Metal—Copper Implements—Gold and Silver Vases and Ornaments—Use of Iron unknown—Aboriginal Engineering—Paved Roads—Peruvian Pottery—Ruins of Pachacamac—Mausoleum of Cuelap—Gran-Chimú—Huaca of Misa—Temple of the Sun—Remains on the Island of Titicaca—Chavin de Huanta—Huanuco el Viejo—Cuzco—Monuments of Tiahuanaco—Island of Coati.
I conclude with a short chapter on Peruvian antiquities, made up for the most part from the work of Rivero and Tschudi, and illustrated with the cuts copied from that work for Mr Baldwin's account.[XIV-1] Ancient Peru included also modern Ecuador, Bolivia, and a large part of Chili; and the most remarkable monuments of antiquity are considered the works of a people preceding that found by Pizarro in possession of the country, and bearing very much the same relation to the subjects of the Incas as the ancient Mayas bore to the Quichés of Guatemala, or perhaps the Toltecs to the Aztecs. The Peruvians that came into contact with the Spaniards were superior in some respects to the Aztecs. At least equally advanced in the various mechanical and fine arts, except sculpture and architectural decoration, they lived under as perfect a system of government, and rendered homage to less bloodthirsty gods. They kept their records by means of quipus, or knotted strings, a method probably as useful practically as the Aztec picture-writing, but not so near an approach to an alphabet; while the more ancient nations have left nothing to compare with the hieroglyphic tablets of Central America, and the evidence is far from satisfactory that they possessed any advanced art in writing. It will be seen from the specimens to be presented that their architecture, though perhaps more massive than that of Mayas or Nahuas, is not on the whole of a superior character. The most marked contrasts are found in the occurrence in Peru of cyclopean structures, the use of larger blocks of stone, the comparative absence of the pyramidal foundations, of architectural and hieroglyphic sculpture, and the more extensive use of adobes as a building-material.
METALLIC RELICS.
Peruvian Copper Implements.
Golden Vase from Peru.
Huaca is the Peruvian name for any venerated or holy structure, but is usually applied to the conical mounds of the country, mostly mounds of sepulture. Thousands of these have been opened and from them have been taken a great variety of relics, together with preserved mummies wrapped in native cloth. The relics include implements and ornaments of metal, stone, bone, shell, and wood. The Peruvians seem to have had a more abundant supply of metals than the civilized nations of North America, and to have been at least equally skillful in working them. The cuts show specimens of copper cutting implements, of which a great variety are found. Besides copper, they had gold and silver in much greater abundance than the northern artisans, and the arts of melting, casting, soldering, beating, inlaying, and carving these metals, were carried to a high degree of perfection. Every one has read the marvelous accounts, naturally exaggerated, but still with much foundation in truth, of the immense quantities of gold obtained by the Spaniards in Peru; of the room filled with golden utensils by the natives as a ransom for the Inca Atahuallpa. A golden vase is shown in the cut. Large quantities of gold have been taken in more modern times from the huacas, where it was doubtless placed in many cases to keep it from the hands of the conquerors. Most of the articles have of course gone to the melting-pot, but sufficient specimens have been preserved or sketched to show the degree of excellence to which the Peruvian smiths had attained. The following cut shows a silver vase. The search for treasure in the huacas still goes on, and is not always unrewarded. Tin, lead, and quicksilver are said to have been worked by the natives. Iron ore is very abundant in Peru, but the only evidence that iron was used is the difficulty of executing the native works of excavation and cutting stone without it, and the fact that the metal had a name in the native language. No traces of it have ever been found. The cut shows two copper tweezers.