H*DLieAj SKELETAL REMAINS 38 



point- concerning the specimen, according to tin--*' reports, are as 



In tin- month of .January. l ss l. -<>me quarrying was In-ing done 

 by means of dynamite at tin- foot of the >mall hill known as u Penon 

 de los Banns,'' about 2$ miles east of the City of Mexico, and in the 

 rocks of the uppcrmo-t layer loosened by the explosions a number 

 of human Ixmes were found. These were collected by Col. A. Obre- 

 gon, who HI pcrvised the work, and were delivered by him to the 

 minister of public works, who appointed Harcena to make a study 

 of them. Several days afterwards Barcena and Castillo, the latter 

 a professor of geology, explored the locality of the find. It was 

 seen that the human bones came from the uppermost layer of cal- 

 careous tufa (in another place called silicified calcareous rock), 

 covered with a " recent formation of vegetable earth and marl," 

 containing numerous fragments of pottery of Aztec and of modern 

 origin. The calcareous rock was found not to constitute an uninter- 

 rupted layer and yielded no lx>nes of animals or pieces of pottery. 

 Some shells discovered in it belong to the Quaternary as well as to 

 the present-day waters. Softer calcareous rocks were found in the 

 neighborhood where were also remains of pottery and roots of plants 

 clearly modern. In the eastern part of the hill there is a hot-water 

 spring, which forms sediments somewhat similar to those containing 

 the bones; but the formation of the rock from this source is very 

 slow and not extensive. The conclusions of Barcena and Castillo 

 were that the deposit containing the human bones was of lake origin 

 and belonged to the " Upper Quaternary, or at least to the base of 

 the present geological age." Professor Xewberry's opinion, expressed 

 in the Tribune (see bibliography, page 32), was that the rock is a 

 comparatively recent travertine or sediment from the thermal waters 

 of that locality. 



The human Ixmes are firmly embedded in and their cavities are 

 filled with the rock, which is brownish gray in color and very hard. 

 The exposed parts are portions of the skull, clavicle, vertebra?, ribs, 

 and the bones from the upper and the lower limbs. They lie in dis- 

 order, but are apparently parts of the same skeleton. The bones are 

 yellowish in color and present aspects of fossilization. 



A- to the anthropological characteristics of the bones, Barcena 

 writes as follows: 



The greater j>art of the cranium having neon destroyed. It was not possible 

 t determine Its dinineter nnd thus elussify It. ... The odontological char- 

 M. i.-risiic-s Indleate that this man thonged to au unmixed race, the teeth being 

 set with regularity and eorresixmding perfectly the upper with the lower. They 

 present the |eculiiirit.v. lx>sides. that the eanlne teeth are not conical, but have 



Thr American \atnrali9t, xix, 743, 1880. 

 3463 Xi. ttl 07 - 3 



