360 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



years. Mr Mercer, while suggesting possible intrusions from 

 above, "when all was considered felt forced to conclude that a 

 significant number 1 of artificial chips rested in situ in the sand, 

 and hence were of an age indicating its deposition." On this 

 question of age, Prof. Hollick reported that " the undisturbed 

 sand was found to be distinctly stratified and evidently a water 

 deposit" He "accepts the conclusions of competent authorities 

 that the so-called palaeoliths are of human manufacture, and that 

 the sand in which they occur is of glacial age.... The only con- 

 troversy which seems possible is over the question of intrusion 

 from above and, in view of the facts now adduced, the burden of 

 proof should in fairness rest with those who hold this view 2 ." 

 Unless, therefore, intrusion is proved, of which there seems to be 

 no evidence, the question would appear to be settled in favour of 

 Palaeolithic Man in North America. 



Further evidence in the same direction has been adduced for 

 South America by Prof. A. Nehring, who describes a skull from a 

 sambaqui (shell-mound) at Santos, on the south coast of Brazil, 

 which presents many characters like those of the Javanese Pithec- 

 anthropus erectus*. There is the same marked constriction of 

 the frontal behind the orbital region, a trait highly characteristic 

 of old and late South American skulls, some being not merely 

 relatively, but absolutely not broader than the Java skull. The 

 orbital region of the frontal is somewhat like the Neanderthal, 

 with low retreating forehead and well-developed glabella and 

 orbital ridges; cephalic index 77-6, but height and consequent 

 cranial capacity much greater than the Java, so far as this can be 

 conjectured. The face also is strongly prognathous, a feature 

 enhanced perhaps by the abnormal dental development, the pre- 

 molars and molars being very like those of the Spy, No. i, 

 cranium. 



Dr H. Meyer's explorations in 1896 of the huge Laguna 

 sambaquis in the same region, some quite 50 feet high and 



1 About fifty mostly man-made argillite, chert, jasper, and quartz flakes. 



1 An Investigation of Man's Antiquity at Trenton, by Prof. G. F. Wright, 

 Prof. Arthur Hollick, Messrs H. B. Kiimmel, G. N. Knapp, and H. C. Mercer 

 {Science, Nov. 5, 1897). 



Verhandl. Berliner Anthrop. Ges. 1896, p. 710. 



