PREFATORY NOTE 



Tin- 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 l>een 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 cmphasi/cd by a desire to coun- 

 teract and correct this tendency. Kvidence 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 l>een the practice of the Bureau when discoveries l>elieved to 

 have an important l>caring on the question of human antiquity in 

 North America have l>een announced to seek to determine their just 

 value. In pursuance of this plan its representatives have IMMMI 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 tyjx 1 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 |H*culiar remains and to make such investigations regarding 

 the conditions under which they were discovered as he might find 

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

 nounced, the Bureau was alxtiit 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 

 pa|>er was withheld from publication, however, until the Nebraska 

 -jM-cimeiis could lx examined, so that the present bulletin includes 

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

 in North America up to the present time. 



W. II. Hoi.MRS, Ch'tff. 

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