PREFATORY NOTE 



The Bureau of American Ethnology from its foundation has taken 

 a deep interest in all researches relating to the antiquity of man in 

 America, and its attitude in considering the various questions that 

 have arisen has been conservative. In the earlier years of the investi 

 gation there existed a rather marked tendency on the part of students, 

 and especially on the part of amateurs and the general public, hastily 

 to accept any testimony that seemed to favor antiquity, and the con 

 servative attitude of the Bureau was emphasized by a desire to coun 

 teract and correct this tendency. Evidence of the great antiquity of 

 man in the Old World is abundant and convincing, and the assump 

 tion that like conditions exist in America seemed reasonable and was 

 perhaps justifiable, although it led to the general acceptance of much 

 that was without satisfactory verification. 



It has been the practice of the Bureau when discoveries believed to 

 haA T e an important bearing on the question of human antiquity in 

 North America have been announced to seek to determine their just 

 value. In pursuance of this plan its representatives have been sent 

 on occasion to New Jersey, to the Ohio valley, to sites on the Potomac, 

 to Minnesota, to California, to Florida, and to Kansas, to make the 

 necessary investigations. On receipt of reports of the discovery in 

 Nebraska of human crania of low typo and possibly of great geolog 

 ical antiquity, prompt action was taken. Doctor Hrdlicka, an accom 

 plished student of human osseous remains, was sent to Lincoln to ex 

 amine the peculiar remains and to make such investigations regarding 

 the conditions under which they were discovered as he might find 

 possible at that season of the year. When this discovery was an 

 nounced, the Bureau was about to send to press a paper by Doctor 

 Hrdlicka embodying descriptions of all the known American human 

 remains for which geological antiquity had been claimed. This 

 paper was withheld from publication, however, until the Nebraska 

 specimens could be examined, so that the present bulletin includes 

 descriptions of these as well as of all kindred remains brought to 

 light in North America up to the present time. 



W. H. HOLMES, Chief. 



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