Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1857-11-18
ANCIENT CIVILIZATION IN THE US.

"A
a paragraph is going the rounds of the news
papers, affirming that a brass Kettle mas oeen
found. in Illinois imbedded in a seam oil pi-
luminous coal. Without being willing to
youch for the correctness of the tale, We thinh
It may now be considered demonstrated
that the red man was not the aborlgInai IN
habitant of North America, but that a race
preceded him, far superior in point oil clViii-
cation. The earthen fortifcations OF the MIS-
sssippi valley, the Atlantic States. .snd the
utensils of metal found buried everywhere,
are conclusive proofs CT this fact. In Europe,
at least, similar kinds of evidence are regard
ed as indisputablc. The bronze swords which
have been dug up from the bogs of Ireland,
and which are discovered all over ancient
Scandinavia, are accepted as certain testimony
that a race of people once inhabited those re-
gions, different from those living there even
in the earliest period of history. A SINH
lar bronze period, antecedent to the knowi-
edge of iron, appears to have existed in the
United States. All the Oldest weapons ex-
humed on this continent of this compo-
site metal. In the copper mines OF the
northwest arc indications OF those mines hav-
ing been worked long before Father Mar
quette visited the Mississippi; perhaps before
the red man himself a denizen there.
The ordinary objection TO this, that it would
be impossible for such a civilization to have
perished, is founded on a radical error. For
nothing is more conclusvely established in
history, than that savage nations, wherever
| their antecedents could be traced, have been
| found to have been nations in retrograde con-
dition, or the conquerors and successors of
such nations. The whole of Northern Africa,
now principally the prey of semi-barbarous
| tribes, was once as civilized province as any
in the world. After the Romans abandon
| ed Britain, the inhabitants, even of the
towns, sunk into a state of comparative saw
agery, from which they emerged only after
| the lapse of centuries, and in consequence of
a new importation of civilized ideas. The
great plain of Mesopotamia, once the seat of
the mighty AssyrIan empire, is now almost
desolate the nomade Arab, and the wild ass
of the desert, sharing between them the vast
and lonely wastes. The old Egyptian civili-
zation has perished so utterly, that the miser-
| able Copt, the lineal descendant Of that ancient
dweller of the Nile, is ignorant of its first ru-
diments. All the facts of history corroborate
the affirmations of Holy Writ, that the earli-
est inhabitants of the globe enjoyed COM
paratively high civilization, and that savage
nations are TIE wrecks of once civilized peo-
pie, and the fallen and degraded remnants of
better and nobler types.
OF the character of the primordial inhabi-
tants Of these United States, the antochtones,
as scientific writer's call such aborigines, it is
impossible to speak certainly. The various
theories which have been projected some as
signing them place among the Mongol tribes,
some describing them a. the lost children of
Isrcal, arc all alike unsupported by sufficient
proof. We know too little respecting the
ancient populations of these regions, either
to affirm or to deny what they were. From
the paucity of their remains on the Atlantic
coast as compared with those found in the
valley of the Mississippi, it would seem prob
able, however, that their chief seat of en-
pre in the west, and that they entered
America, if they immigrated at all, from the
direction of Asia. Time. which will bring to
light more of their utensils, will enable inves-
tigators to approximate finally, perhaps, to
the truth but at present it is waste of words
to speculate as to their race, religion, political
Institutions or language. One fact alone is
indisputable, which is, that race, superior
in the arts of life well as in knowledge OF
war to the Indians, an agricultural, or at least
a pastoral, and not hunter race, once inhabi-
ted these United States. But how long ago
this was, no man can tell. Nor whether this
primordial race was extirpated by the red
man or declined into him throu1b long cen.
turies of degradation.