Years Ago?

Men on Pitcairn 14,000 Years Ago?

From Our Own Correspondent

Suva Oct. 19

PITCAIRN ISLAND, geographic ally one of the loneliest of the rth’s inhabited places, has a habit keeping itself in the news. Since 108, when the American whaler >paz discovered by accident the 18ars-old secret hiding-place of the •unty mutineers, the island has dom dropped out of the world’s erest.

Now comes the possibility that cairn was inhabited in the Late laeolithic Age—the dim period of : first true men—and archaeologists : showing keen interest.

Implements which authorities of le experience believe are of laeolithic origin have been dug up Pitcairn. Five of them—two ses, two borers and a mallet—were mght to Suva by an Indian builder ned Rami who found them while was working on the new Covena nt school building job at Pitcairn, ami is now building foreman on new Anglican Cathedral at Suva), n Suva the implements were en to Dr. I. Hamilton Beattie, an haeologist of wide training and >erience. After close investigation, Beattie is satisfied that the pped stone implements indicate aeolithic culture at Pitcairn. If ; assumption is correct, it sets the ith Pacific record back far beyond earliest known traces of lanesian, Micronesian and Poly ian occupation.

"he earliest known cultures in the nds were of Neolithic (New Stone s) origin. One of the differences veen Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) Neolithic men was that the ner had only chipped implements, le the latter had learned to polish grind stone implements. Mela ans, Micronesians and Polynesians developed their cultures on a )lithic foundation, he nearest place to Pitcairn where i alaeolithic culture is known to e existed is Tasmania. Nobody ws why Tasmania should have palaeolithic people while the tralian mainland has so far del no traces of anything earlier i the Aboriginal culture, which is early and primitive form of •lithic. But now an even greater tery lies behind the question of Palaeolithic people reached aim. The discovery may support theory that Pitcairn was once

part of a large land mass—perhaps a continent—and that Old Stone Age people were living at Pitcairn well over 14,000 years ago.

TT is believed that west-east Poly nesian migrations into the Pacific began about 2,000 years ago. Pit cairn was uninhabited when a British warship sighted it in 1767, but it contains many solid proofs that at some time it was the home of Polynesians, who may have reached it from the Tuamotu atolls (east and south-east of Tahiti). Why the Poly nesians vanished is one of the tantalising mysteries of the South Seas—and now comes this new

lystery. Probably it will never be lown whether the Polynesians »und and exterminated people of the Id Stone Age at Pitcairn, or whether B little chipped implements, and all her traces of the craftsmen, had ready been lost for thousands of ars when the Polynesians arrived.

9Allenge From Auckland

In Auckland, however, Mr. V. F. sher, of the Auckland Museum, in pimenting on the Suva report, licated that he was not at all im sssed.

“Where amateur archaeologists en fall in is that they forget that, make a Neolithic implement, the iker has to go through the Palaeo lic stage first,” Mr. Fisher is >orted as saying. ‘ln New Zealand we have found f -completed Neolithic implements iring a strong resemblance to those the Palaeolithic age. What has opened is that the Maori lost the plement or broke it during its nufacture, and threw it away. The ae thing happened all over the rid —including Pitcairn.” to emphasise his point, Mr. Fisher nted to dozens of adzes and ■ers of Pitcairn origin in the scum’s collection. Although all olithic in origin, there were many

resemblances to the Palaeolithic— but, in so far as the Auckland Museum is concerned, these are all Neolithic—that is, of about 10,000 years more recent origin than Palaeolithic.