hedliCka] skeletal REMAINS OF EAELY MAN" 191 



"The human bones encountered by Seguin in the Province of 

 Santa Fe are as fossil as the skeletons of the glyptodons, taxodons, 

 and mylodons, which are to-day being exhibited in the principal 

 museums of the world." (Pp. 524-525.) 



The author then proceeds to estabUsh the horjzon of the Pampean 

 formation in which the bones hiy. His decision is that they came 

 from the reddish vSuperior Pampean and belong to the same geologic 

 horizon, slightly more or less, as the human bones found at the 

 Arroyo Frias, near ]\Iercedes. 



In the same general neighborhood from which the Seguin collec- 

 tion came were found a number of other species of fossil animals, 

 hence "the man whose remains Seguin encountered was contem- 

 poraneous with five genera and seven species of extinct mammals, 

 namely, the Arctothcrium honseriensis, the Hydrochmrus magnus, the 

 Mastodon, an equid, the Megatherium americanwn, the Lestodon tri- 

 gonidens, and the Euryurus rudis." (P. 526.) It would appear evi- 

 dent from the above that Seguin's death and his withholding the 

 information as to the exact locality of the fmd, did not matter much 

 after all. 



Roth, who occupies liimself briefly with the Seguin collection in 

 liis letter to KoUmann (1889), brings forth no facts touching directly 

 on the human bones sold by Seguin, but questions the opinion of 

 Burmeister that the bones came from a gravel deposit. He says:^ 



"The opinion of Doctor Burmeister concerning the find of Seguin, 

 given on page 42 in the third volume of the Physical Description of 

 the Ai'gentine Republic, is not justified. Burmeister believes that 

 the bones of the fossil bear may have been removed by water from a 

 more ancient stratum and then deposited wath human bones in a layer 

 of gravel. It is not likely that the water has torn from the hard loess 

 a certain number of the bones of the bear {Ardotherium) to transport 

 them into another place and there unite them; besides which, in the 

 region cited, the borders of the Carcarana, there does not exist any 

 layer of gravel. I know perfectly the place where the railroad from 

 Rosario to Cordoba crosses the Carcarana. The banks consist of loess 

 belonging to the Intermediary Pampean formation. Above there 

 exists a thin layer of humus and down below, in the bed of the 

 stream itself, there are found from place to place deposits of an 

 altogether insignificant extent of mud and of triturated calcareous 

 concretions. Had Seguin, instead of finding the human bones in the 

 loess gathered them in these deposits, everyone who knows Pampean 

 fossils ^vould have seen at once that the debris did not come from 

 the Pampean formation; but if these bones were really discovered 

 in the loess traversed b}?- the foundations of the bridge, they belong 

 to the Intermediary Pampean strata. . . . Consequently, 



1 Ueber den Schadel von Pontimelo (richtiger Fontezuelas) ; in Miith. anat. Inst. Vesalianum zu 

 Basel, 18S9, p. 2. 



J/ 



