Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1918 — CULTURE HERE BEFORE 1492 [ARTICLE]

CULTURE HERE BEFORE 1492

Did Amsrlca’s Pre-Columbian Civilization Come From Egypt? la Now Question. Prof. Elliot Smith developed in an extraordinarily interesting manner the thesis that the pre-Columbian civilizations of America—or at least many important features In those civilizations —Were not truly aboriginal, but came in a cultural wave from Asia across the Pacific ocean, the original starting point of the most remarkable characteristic being Egypt. Professor Smith believes, says Science Progress, that the extremely twculiar culture of Egypt was spread eastward by mariners, mainly Phoenicians, for several centuries after B. C. 800. To quote the author’s own words, he thinks that “the essential elements of the ancient civilisations of India (the pre-Aryan civilizations), further India, the Malay archipelago, Oceania and America were brought in succession to each of these places by mariners, whose oriental migrations began as trading Intercourse between the eastern Mediterranean and India some time after 800 B. C., and that the highly complex and artificial culture which they spread abroad was derived largely from Egypt (not earlier than the twenty-first dynasty), but also included many important accretions from other sources, and that after traversing Asia and Oceania and becoming modified on the way, the stream finally “continued for many centuries to play upon the Pacific littoral of America, where it was responsible for planting the germs of the remarkable pre-Columbian civilization.”