20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. : 



VII. THE SODA CREEK SKELETON 



Soda creek is situated in Colorado, in longitude 105 40', latitude 

 39 35', at an altitude of about <'>.." 70 feet. There are numenm- 

 springs in the locality, some hot and some cold, the water of which 

 deposits mineral substances. In September, I860, according to a 

 report by E. L. Berthoud, C. E. a 



Two miners, who had been for two months and a half owning a mining claim 

 alMuit -<>0 yards southwest of the springs and ait the foot of the hill marked 

 on the map of Soda hill, reached at last in the gravel, l>owlders, and rocky 

 de|M>sits of Soda bar a depth of '22 feet; here at this depth and about U yard.- 

 from the foot of the hill slope they found a human skeleton lying on its face 

 and emlKxlded in a deposit of gravel, sand, small bowlders, and fragments of 

 the adjacent rock in situ. . . . The skeleton, all whose larger l>ones, 

 though very light and porous, were yet intact, and whose skull was also entire, 

 was in a very tolerable state of preservation. Under the skeleton and alxnit 2 

 feet lower down they found ujnm the surface of what the miners call " red 

 rock," the trunk, limbs, and roots of a small pine tree, identical in all respects 

 with the red pine (/'. variabiliis) of the adjacent slopes. The bark appeared 

 charred and blackened, the wood was light, yellow, and apparently sound. 

 . . . On exposure to air, however, it soon became soft and crumbled, more 

 like rotten or water-soaked wood. The roots and limbs appeared as if vio- 

 lently compressed or forced in the seams of the underlying rock. There, then, 

 was a point conclusively shown namely, that prior to the cause which covered 

 Soda hill. Soda bar, and Dry Diggings hill with its enormous beds of gravel, 

 sand, and lowlders, and its native gold . . . man roved and dwelt in this 

 region. . . . Whatever cataclysm buried this member of the human family, 

 be he Aztec, Indian, Esquimaux, or Mound-builder, he is for the region above 

 mentioned " liomo dilui-ii tcstis." 



Berthoud's account leaves much to be desired from the standpoint 

 of geology. It gives the impression that the material covering the 

 human remains and the pine may have been talus of no great antiq- 

 uity. The skeleton represented undoubtedly an intentional burial, 

 otherwise the bones would have been crushed. It did not seem to 

 present anything very extraordinary and was not fossilized. There 

 is no report of a scientific examination of the bones, and no clew is 

 given as to what became of them. Under these circumstances it is 

 impossible to arrive at any definite conclusion regarding the antiquity 

 of the find. What evidence there is speaks more against than for any 

 considerable geological age of the skeleton. 



VIII. THE CHARLESTON BONES 



Emil Schmidt, in his Zur Urgeschichte Nordamerikas, 6 gives nearly 

 all that is known concerning these specimens. It appears that Prof. 

 F. S. Holmes, geologist and paleontologist, of Charleston, while ex- 



Description of the Hot Springs of Soda Creek . . . together with the remarkable 

 discovery of a human skeleton and a fossil pine tree In the bowlder and gravel formation 

 of Soda bar, Oct. 13, 1860, Proceedings of Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 

 xvin, 342-345, 1866. 



"Arch. f. Anthrop., V, 250 et seq., 1871-72. 



