VIII PREFACE 



that has given many examples of baked earth and other apparent 

 evidences of man's antiquity. Early in July Mr. Willis and the 

 writer returned once more to Buenos Aires, completed as far as possi- 

 ble the work of research there, and then started with Sr. de Carles 

 for Ovejero, a locality in the northwestern part of Argentina, which in 

 the last few years has yielded a relatively large quantity of "fossil" 

 human bones. Subsequently this trip was extended, for geologic as 

 well as anthropologic purposes, to Tucuman, San Juan, and Mendoza. 

 From the last-named place Mr. Willis returned to Buenos Aires, while 

 the writer crossed the Andes on his way to Peru. 



• The writer left Argentina feeling that the time at his disposal there, 

 though utilized to the utmost, was all too brief. The country abounds 

 in anthropologic problems and material and large sections as yet 

 have not been explored. But the opportunities suggested by these 

 considerations belong to the future. The writer and his colleague 

 were not able to visit some of the places where remains of presumably 

 ancient man were found, because, the discoveries having been made 

 many years ago by men no longer among the living, the exact locaHties 

 are not known. There was no time to conduct more extensive 

 excavations, and even the examinations of some of the specimens 

 could have been made with advantage more detailed. The main 

 objects of the journey had been accomplished, however, so that fur- 

 ther particulars could not be expected to change or augment mate- 

 rially the essentials of the evidence. Whatever doubts remain are 

 of such nature that only by justifiable inference and strictly scientific 

 field work can it be hoped to effect their final solution. 



Unfortunately the general results of the inquiry here outlined are 

 not in harmony with the claims of the various authors who reported 

 the several finds. As will be seen by the details, the evidence is, up to 

 the present time, unfavorable to the hypothesis of man's great antiq- 

 uity, and especially to the existence of man's predecessors in South 

 America ; and it does not sustain the theories of the evolution of man 

 in general, or even of that of the American man alone, in the southern 

 continent. The facts gathered attest everywhere merely the presence 

 of the already differentiated and relatively modern American Indian. 



A. H. 



