FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS ON EVIDENCE OF 

 EARLY MAN IN FLORIDA 



By JAMES W. GIDLEY, 



Assistant Curator of Mammalian fossils, U. S. National Museum 



Following the controversy raised in scientific circles several years 

 ago by the discoveries of Dr. E. H. Sellards at Vero, Florida, regard- 

 ing the antiquity of man in that region, the Smithsonian Institution 

 has conducted a series of investigations at various localities along the 

 east coast of Florida, but principally at Melbourne and Vero. The 

 results of these expeditions, which were placed under my charge, have 

 been reported on from season to season, the last report appearing in 

 last year's number of this publication, 1 Thanks to an extension of the 

 kind generosity of Mr. Childs Frick, who for the past few seasons has 

 shared with the Smithsonian the expenses of these expeditions, work 

 in Florida was continued this year. 



Melbourne was again chosen as the base of operations, and during 

 the greater part of February and March Mr. C. P. Singleton, my chief 

 field assistant of former years, and I carried on explorations, excavat- 

 ing considerable areas especially at Melbourne and other nearby locali- 

 ties. Fair success crowned our efforts, though perhaps not to the 

 same degree as on some of our former expeditions. The most impor- 

 tant discoveries of the season at the Melbourne locality included the 

 finding of two artifacts under circumstances that constitute additional 

 evidence of early man in Florida. The first of these is a crudely 

 formed arrow or spear point found by Mr. Singleton in situ in the 

 undisturbed upper layer of the fossil-bone-bearing deposit known as 

 " bed No. 2 " of Sellards. It was lying directly under one of the large 

 bones of a poorly preserved skeleton of a mastodon. 



The other artifact is a small bone awl taken from the undisturbed 

 sand of the No. 2 bed somewhat below its middle section. In both 

 instances the excavated areas were originally covered with a few feet 

 of loose but characteristically stratified swamp deposit composed of 

 alternating layers of sand, leaf mould, and swamp muck, positive evi- 

 dence that the artifacts were a part of the formation in which they 

 were found and not to be accounted for on the assumption of later 

 intrusions. Several good specimens also were added to our growing 

 collection of fossil mammal bones from this locality. 



1 Explorations and Field-Work of the Smithsonian Institution in 1929, p. 2,7- 



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