468 AURIFEROUS GRAVEL MAN IN CALIFORNIA. 



torrent over bowlders would not onl}-^ have bruised and abraded the 

 sharp edges of the bone, but the loose earth, broken bones, wampum, 

 and shells, instead of being- packed into the skull, w^ould have been 

 quickly dislodged and wndel}^ scattered by the rushing waters. The 

 facts arc that the conditions of fracture and the impacting of bones 

 of more than one individual, along with other miscellaneous articles, in 

 the cavities of the skull, are just such consequences as would result 

 from pitching bod}" after body into an Indian burial pit, where young 

 and old were jammed into a conglomerate mass and covered with earth, 

 gravel, and stones. 



The presence of a wampum bead eml)edded with the earth, bones, 

 and pebbles in the skull is a strong argument against anti(juity. It is 

 not claimed that this shell ])ead is fossilized, and it would seem that 

 it resembles in every way — size, shape, manner of boring, and degree 

 of elal)oration — the concavo-convex beads made from chim shells and 

 worn by members of nearly exciy Indian family in California. That 

 a Tertiary people should have made and worn th(» identical form seems 

 highly improbable. 



The small snail shell, the fragile Helix inortnonuiii,, found also in the 

 skull, is much more at home in a modern burial place than in the tor- 

 rent-swept bed of a Tertiary river. The species is recent, and I am 

 not aware that it has been found in Tertiary formations. 



It thus appears that the so-called Calaveras skull exhil)lts nothiiig in 

 its character, condition, or associated })henomena in('ompati])le with 

 the theory of recent origin and very nmch that may be justly con- 

 strued as favoring that theory.^ 



The xTxiiJl (it ('aiiihi'hlgt'. — On returning to the P^ast I took the tirst 

 opportunity of visiting Cambridge for the purpose of examining the 

 Calaveras skull. Professor Putnam very kindly removed the speci- 

 men from its resting place and permitted me to examine it at leisure 

 and to handle the loose materials — the lime-cemented earth, the bits 

 of bones, and the shell bead — detached by Professor Wyman. I had 

 looked forward with great interest to this glimpse of the specimen 

 about which so much has been said and upon which so much has )>een 

 and is predicated, and was prepared to be duly impressed with its char- 

 acter as a fossil, but I was distinctly disappointed. The importance 

 of the skull as an index of antiquity has been overestimated. I find 

 myself confirmed in the concAisions forced upon me by a consideration 

 of the evidence alread}'^ presented, namel}^ that the skull was never 

 carried and broken in a Tertiary torrent, that it never came from the 

 old gravels in the Mattison mine, and that it does not in any way rep- 



^ Contemporaneously with the prehminary pubhcation of the present paper in the 

 American Anthropologist, a short paper, written by Prof. W. P. Blake, of the Uni- 

 versity of Arizona, and referring to many of the questions here presented, appeared 

 in the Journal of Geology of the Chicago University for October and November, 1899. 



