hrdliCka] skeletal REMAINS OP EARLY MAN 171 



of bones bears relation to the presence of metallic substances in the 

 terrane or deposit in wliich the skulls are found. However, whatever 

 may be the time necessary for this metallic impregnation to become 

 complete, it is impossible to attribute on this basis any very great 

 antiquity to the bones. In fact, it is scarcely two years ago that we 

 received from Para a skull that was buried in the mud on the shore of 

 the Marajo, at its confluence with the Amazon. In this skull also one 

 finds all the characteristics of metallization of the bone; the specimen 

 is relatively heavy, of a maroon color and has a metalHc sound. 

 Chemical analysis made on a part of tliis skull showed the existence 

 of a very large quantity of oxide of iron and also a large proportion 

 of alumina, two substances which do not enter normally into the 

 composition of bone. Nevertheless everything leads us to believe 

 that this skull is a relatively very recent one; its craniologic char- 

 acteristics are not at all similar to those of the skulls of Lagoa Santa; 

 it was found in a rapidly forming estuary the age of which is plainly 

 less than that of the caves. Hence metallization of bones is not at 

 all a special characteristic of fossil crania." 



Lacerda expresses no decided opinion either for or against the 

 acceptance of antiquity for the Lagoa Santa human remains, but 

 his remarks are evidence of hesitation in assuming any great age. 



On the occasion of the meeting of the Congress of the Americanists 

 at Copenliagen, in 1883, some of the skulls and bones from the cave of 

 Sumidouro were exliibited by Ltitken,^ who, at the same time, gave 

 the principal data concerning the history of the discoveries. In the 

 report of this communication, we read (pp. 43-44) the following 

 sensible remarks: 



Lund himself did not go beyond the formal statement that "the 

 most important criterion for fixing the relative age of these remains 

 is absolutely wanting, because they were not found in their origi- 

 nal position. Reinhardt, who had a profound knowledge of the 

 subject, although he did not have an opportunity to explore anew 

 the Brazil caves, has given the opinion, it is true, 'that there is no 

 doubt that the human remains were deposited in the cave at nearly 

 the same epoch as those of the extinct animals,' and that 'the latter 

 have been the contemporaries of man, at least in the last part of their 

 existence.' Nevertheless, I have not been able to convince myself 

 that we are authorized to adopt this hypothesis other than as likely 

 or probable. I know well that de Quatrefages, in his" discourse on 

 'The fossil man of Lagoa Santa in Brazil and his actual descendants,' 

 at the Anthropological Congress in Moscow in 1879, arrived at the 

 same conclusions as Reinhardt . . . that is to say, that the con- 

 temporaneity of man with the extinct species of animals is evident 



1 Liitken, Chr. Fr., Exposition de quclques-uns des cranes at des autres ossements hiunains de Miiias- 

 gera6s dans le Bresil central decouverts et d^terres par le feu Professenr P.W. Lund; ia C. R. Congrhs inter- 

 national des Americanistes, Copenhagen, 1SS3, p. 40. 



