South American Prehistory: a review

These two articles which deal respectively with the chronological basis of Patagonian prehistory and with its rock pictures, are by the well-known prehistorian who today is Professor of Prehistory in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature in the University of Buenos Aires. They set out a scheme of outstanding importance for the prehistory of Patagonia which strengthens our opinion, already backed by evidence from all over America, of the great antiquity of Man in the New World.It is inevitable that, when a European archaeologist has transferred his activities to the New World, he should see everything with European eyes, and look for parallels with the cultures he knew in the Old World. Thus it is natural that, in the few years which Professor Menghin has spent in Argentina, his untiring energy should have produced finds and theories of undoubted interest. These are summarized in a table in the first article, which boldly attempts to correlate the cultures of Patagonia with those of the Upper Palaeolithic and later periods in Europe.