Melanesia

Out of the Aeons

Theories of a bygone Pacific civilisation, of which the Easter Island images and the megalithic masonry of Ponape and Nan-Matol are conceivable vestiges, were freely circulated among students, and learned journals carried varied and often conflicting speculations on a possible former continent whose peaks survive as the myriad islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. The diversity in dates assigned to the hypothetical vanished culture - or continent - was at once bewildering and amusing; yet some surprisingly relevant allusions were found in certain myths of Tahiti and other islands.