THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 9 



ciation therefore with extinct animals and even an apparently 

 like degree of fossilization are not entirely trustworthy when 

 taken alone. Associated artifacts when implying ceremonial 

 burial are fairly safe criteria and have been given high value 

 in European age determination. 



The final criterion, that of anatomical distinction, is of 

 course highly valuable, but has led to difficulties, as, for in- 

 stance, when a modern type, such as all the American ones 

 prove to be, shows other indications of great antiquity. It was 

 formerly supposed that there was but a single line of phyletic 

 descent to modern man, but the belief is gaining ground that, 

 as in the evolution of horses, the story is not so simple as was 

 at first supposed, but that there were several lines of descent 

 all of which may be of ancient origin, so that what have been 

 called modern types of mankind might well be found con- 

 temporaneous with, or even antecedent to, the remains of more 

 primitive races. This will be discussed in greater detail below 

 (page 35). 



RECORD OF DISCOVERY 



New World. A brief resume of the discoveries of the 

 actual osseous remains of prehistoric man which have thus far 

 come to light emphasizes the antiquity of his world-wide dis- 

 tribution, but we are not yet in position to date with finality 

 the earlier men of the New World. Of these, North America 

 has produced a number of specimens, the oldest of which in 

 time of discovery is the so-called Calaveras skull, found, to- 

 gether with certain implements, stone mortars and pestles, 

 spearheads and hammer stones, embedded in Californian gold- 

 bearing gravels of undoubted Pliocene age. How this ma- 

 terial came there is a mystery, but at present the Calaveras 

 man is not supposed to have been contemporaneous with the 

 gravels but to represent a man both physically and culturally 

 of much later date. 



