46 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



and even more exaggerated form among modern and ancient Indian 

 groups, being especially marked in mound-building peoples of the 

 upper Missouri and Mississippi. Secondly, he argues (1907, pp. 

 87-91) that the bones are not fossilized, that certain of the bones 

 show evidence of having been gnawed by rodents and in some cases 

 have been cut with sharp implements, the latter almost always re- 

 stricted to the skull and long bones and occurring on both the assumed 

 most ancient and most modern remains ; and thirdly that rodents have 

 obviously been active in the mound and through the caving in of their 

 burrows the fragmentary bones could have easily reached the deeper 

 levels at which they were found. His results are summed up as 

 follows (1907, p. 98) : 



The mind searches in vain for solid ground on which to base an estimate of 

 more than moderate antiquity for the Gilder Mound specimens. The evidence 

 as a whole only strengthens the above conclusion that the existence on this 

 continent of a man of distinctly primitive type and of exceptional geological 

 antiquity has not as yet been proved. 



Gilder (1911 a, pp. 157-169) has since offered certain objections to 

 some of Hrdlicka's statements and conclusions, the most important 

 of which seem to be that the double layer of human remains found 

 at Long's Hill is not usual in Nebraska mounds but highly exceptional, 

 that the assumed " knife marks " are all of animal origin, and that 

 none of the low-browed Indian skulls figured by Hrdlicka shows the 

 heavy supraorbital ridges meeting between the eyes as is the case 

 in the " loess " type. Poynter, in a brief study of Nebraska crania 

 (191 5, pp. 509-524), indicates that the Long's Hill group are of a 

 " low order racially " and form a distinct type, and Hooton, in study- 

 ing the skeletal material collected by Sterns, groups the " loess man " 

 with certain isolated finds from near Plattsmouth as a distinctive 

 type (Sterns, 1915 a, I, pp. 147-162). Until a thorough study of 

 Nebraska crania from the historic sites occupied by known tribes, as 

 well as prehistoric remains from carefully determined culture strata, 

 has been made, no clear-cut conclusions as to the sequence of types 

 are possible. That the Long's Hill type may prove to be distinctive 

 seems highly probable. That it is pre-Indian or of Pleistocene age, 

 however, seems highly improbable.'^ 



What appears to have been the most systematic and careful piece 

 of work carried on at the Long's Hill site, at least so far as one 

 may judge from the various published accounts, was that of Shimek.'" 



^' See Boule, 1923, pp. 407-408. 



^ Shimek, 1908, pp. 243-254. See pi. 15, fig. I. It is remarkable that with this 

 single exception not one good photographic or detailed diagrammatic presenta- 

 tion of the evidence in situ appears in the literature of this dispute. The Barbour 



