DISCOVERY 



295 



Mention has akeady been made of the human 

 remains from the cave of Lagoa Santa, found in the 

 earlier part of the last century, which, on the strength 

 of their association with the bones of extinct mammals, 

 were assigned to the Quaternary period. Ameghino 

 himself was the first to announce the discovery of 

 fossil man of Quaternary age in Argentina at Arroyo 

 de Frias in 1872 and 1874. Other finds made by 

 Santiago Roth followed at Saladero and Fontezuelas. 

 Another find of importance was the Arrecifes Skull, 

 found by an employee of the Museo Nacional of 

 Argentina and regarded as of Lower Ouaternar}- 

 age. Among remains of the Pampaean type from 

 Ovejero, Ameghino found evidence for a dwarf race 

 of not more than i'30 metres (4 ft.) in height. 



The first claim for the existence of Tertiary Man was 

 put forward by Roth, who discovered the Baradero 

 skeleton in 1SS7. Later investigation failed to sub- 

 stantiate the Tertiary date assigned to the strata in 

 which it was found. Ameghino subsequently described 

 a number of skeletal remains which he assigned to the 

 Tertiary period. Of these, the more important are 

 the Arroyo Siasgo skeleton, which, on the ground of 

 certain morphological peculiarities of the cranium, he 

 decided to be an extinct species to which he gave 

 the name Homo caputinclinatus (or Head bent down), 

 and the Arroj-o del Moro find — still another species to 

 which he gave the name Homo sinemenfo (or Chinless 

 man) . That which Ameghino claimed to be the most 

 primitive of all, and to which he ga\-e the name Homo 

 pampceiis, was the specimen, discovered in 1888, known 

 as the La Tigra or Miramar Skull. Later, he identi- 

 fied other examples of Homo pampcBUs, notabh' some 

 skulls and other remains found at Xecochea. 



Not only was the Ameghino convinced that he had 

 discovered the absolutely primiti\"e type of man, but 

 he also held that he had found the precursor of man . 

 A skull, or rather the fragment of a skull, found in the 

 course of digging a dock at Buenos Aires he maintained 

 belonged to a species of subhuman type, to which he 

 gave the name of Diprothomo plafensis, belonging to 

 the earliest phase of the Pliocene Age (the fourth period 

 of the Tertiary), while in an atlas ^ and femur (thigh- 

 bone) which he argued came from the Upper Miocene 

 — the third period of the Tertiar}' — he saw the remains 

 of Tetraprothomo argentinus. Although no skeletal 

 remains of an earlier date were found, he deduced 

 the existence of earlier t^'pes from the evidence of 

 burnt earth, which he maintained could not be due 

 to natural causes, not only in the Oligocene, but also 

 in the Eocene, the two earliest phases of the Tertiary 

 period. 



Upon this evidence Ameghino based a scheme of 



1 The first cer\'ical vertebra on which the head is balanced. 



the descent of man which can most conveniently be 

 exhibited as follows ; 



Subhuman 

 precursors 

 of man 



'Tetraprothomo Precursor of Man four stages back. 



Triprothomo ,. ,. ,. three ., 



I 

 Diprothomo two 



^Prothomo ,, ,. ., one 



f Homo. 



Earliest I 

 human 

 types 



Homo pampcsiis. 

 I 



Homo primigeniiis. Homo sapiens. 



From this the conclusion followed that man originated 

 in America, and, owing to the number of finds in 

 Argentina, Ameghino held that this was his place of 

 origin. 



It must not be imagined that these views were un- 

 criticised. From time to time a majority of prominent 

 anthropologists pointed out weaknesses in his argu- 

 ments. In the case of the fragment of the skull of 

 Diprothomo, it was shown that his failure to follow 

 correct anthropological method in orienting - the 

 skull had led to a complete misunderstanding of 

 its character. An exhaustive examination of the 

 evidence was made by Dr. Ales Hrdlicka and Dr. 

 Bailey Willis, the geologist, of Washington, who 

 visited a number of the sites of the discoveries and 

 made a thorough examination of the terrain. Dr. 

 Hrdlicka also examined and measured all the human 

 remains accessible to him. Dr. Willis's conclusion 

 was that in no case was there any evidence for the 

 geological antiquity of man. In some cases he was 

 not convinced that the geological strata were anj-thing 

 more than " recent," while in other cases, where the 

 strata belonged to the Quaternary or, possibh^ the 

 Tertiary epoch, there was every reason to believe 

 that the skeletal remains had been deposited there by 

 interment, or by intrusion through the agencj^ of 

 natural forces at a time subsequent to the original 

 deposition of the strata. In many cases the geological 

 evidence depended upon hearsay, or had been incor- 

 rectly recorded, or had not been recorded at all. For- 

 mations had been described as Tertiary or early Quater- 

 nary, which a more extended knowledge of geology 

 would have shown to be recent. As was shown by 

 subsequent analysis and experiment, the tierra cocida, 

 or burnt earth, which was regarded as evidence for the 



- Orientation is a technical term applied to the method of 

 fixing a skuU or fragment of a skull at a certain angle according 

 to rule before anv anthropometric observations are made. 

 This ensures that measurements of diflerent skulls are accu- 

 rately comparable. 



