History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v1.c14.3.4

v1.c14.3.4

It is generally admitted that the Polynesian races were never sufficiently cultured to produce such monuments. Up to this time it has never been the good fortune of any Indian Archæologist or even an European Indologist to examine the ruins of Mayan cities or to explore the Archæological remains in the South Pacific. There is a continuous chain of islands from the south-western end of New Guinea through New Hebrides, Fiji, Friendly islands, Harvey or Cook Island, Pitcairn Island to the Easter Islands, up to which the Melanesian group of Austric languages extend. From the Easter islands it is not a far cry to Juan Fernandez, off the coast of the Argentine Republic. In the Easter Islands there are antiquarian remains of the type to which a certain amount of attention has been paid by Anthropologists.¹ It is not possible in the present state of our knowledge, to aver that these remains of the Southern Pacific belong to the early colonists from Kalinga but such a hypothesis is not, altogether, impossible.