./ 



190 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



The examination of the specimens showed Ameghino that the 

 stone implements had ''suffered absolutely no alteration of surface," 

 and that they were "very well made, approaching, particularly in 

 one case, recent forms," From this, and from the nature of the 

 material of which three of the four implements are made (i. e., 

 quartzite, the source of which is in the Sierra Tandil, 120 leagues 

 distant), Ameghino deduced that ''the stone implements brought by 

 Seguin to Europe must have been encountered within the limits 

 of the Province of Buenos Aires, and they proceed, without doul)t, 

 from the black earth of the surface. This, however, does not neces- 

 sarily impugn Seguin's honesty; he was only mistaken. The worked 

 stones may have tumbled from the superficial layer and have been 

 transported onto Pampean deposits, where they were collected. . . . 

 But the same thing did not happen with the bones. . . . Seguin, 

 who collected fossils for 20 years, could hardly have committed such 

 an error." 



The bones, Ameghino continues, show different colors ; many of them 

 are in part or wholly bleached, indicating partial or complete exposure 

 above ground. Some are still enveloped by the earth. On the 

 banks of the Carcarana there are distinguishable only two entirely dif- 

 ferent strata, the thin, black, superficial, vegetal (40-60 cm.), and 

 the reddish Pami)ean argillaceous sediments underneath. The vSeguin 

 specimens show the yellowish color, which proves that they were 

 derived from the Pampean deposits. Some of the bones are light, 

 fragile — they lay in ground without carbonates or sUicates; others are 

 considerably heavier — they, though in the same terrane, became infil- 

 trated with carbonate of lime ; and others show in part one, in part 

 the other, of these characteristics. The earth that still partl}^ 

 envelops some of the specimens is the Pampean sandy clay, and the 

 same is found in their medullary as well as in their interstitial cavi- 

 ties. In some cases the adhering earth is hardened to tosca. "The 

 presence of tosca, which adheres strongly to the bones, and which 

 also fills all the cavities, constitutes itself an incontrovertible proof 

 of the anti({uity of these bones and of their contemporaneity with 

 the great edentates of the Pampean fo^-mation." (P. 523.) 



The bones of the fossil bear present, Amegliino says, the same 

 characteristics as those of man. The surface of many of the human 

 skeletal parts show a number of impressions which were recognized 

 as due to gnawing by extinct animals (?) belonging to the genera 

 Hesperomys and Reithrodon; and the bones of the bear show similar 

 marks caused by gnawing. "It is evident that the Hesperomys and 

 the ReitJirodon have gnawed only fresh bones, a condition from which 

 it is concluded that the man and the bear who left the osseous remains 

 in this locality were not only geologically contemporaneous, but fur- 

 thermore that they died within a very short interval of each other, 

 if not at the same moment." (P. 524.) 



