HRDLifKA] SKEL,ETAL BEMAINS OF EARLY MAN 193 



slivers, that they represented nearly all the parts of the human frame, 

 and yet comprised only small portions of the skeletons, indicate expo- 

 sure of the bones, their fragmentation tkie to exposure, and perhaps 

 other agencies, and either their removal from the original site, winch 

 could have been effected by running water, or the removal of the 

 many missing parts, probably by the same agency. A possible 

 alternative agency would be some great local disturbance, hard to be 

 imagined, causing the fragmentation and the removal from situ of 

 many of the broken parts of the skeletons. 



5. Some of the bones were seen still embedded in, and others with 

 the cavities filled by, Pampean loess, which in some instances was 

 hardened to tosca. The presence of neither of these materials can 

 be C9nsidered as proof of antiquity of the skeletal parts. Bones 

 buried primarily or secondarily in loess (they could not well be 

 buried elsewhere in the regions in question), on the disappearance of 

 the marrow, especially if the bones be broken, become surrounded 

 and filled with the material in which they lie, whatever may be its age. 

 They may become thus filled and surrounded even if lying in, and 

 especially at the edge of, a mixed deposit of loess and gravel. How- 

 ever, the relation of the bones in this case to gravel is entirely uncer- 

 tain, and speculations on the point would be vain. Finally, if the 

 loess carried moisture and lime salts, as it generally does in eastern 

 Argentina, on drying some of it would turn to more or less compact 

 cement, which would adhere to the bones. This would not be real 

 tosca, such as exists already concreted within the loess, though this 

 circumstance is not of great importance. 



6. The bones of fossil animals found with the human bones are 

 nowhere referred to as skeletons, or even as the larger undisturbed 

 parts of the skeletons, of these animals. They were, it is plain, not 

 such, or the fact would surely have been mentioned ; and if only isolated 

 parts, they could easily have been removed from their original resting 

 place by torrential waters and deposited in contact with the human 

 bones. 



7. The ''fossiUzation" of the human bones has been estimated 

 without actual tests, leaving the subject in uncertainty. But 

 even real mineralization, as mentioned in other parts of this report, 

 is more a criterion of conditions than of age. 



8. The implements stated explicitly by Seguin to have been found 

 with the bones are such as were used by the Indians of other parts of 

 the Province of Buenos Aires. No. 1 is not only identical in form 

 with that found by Ameghino in the superficial layer at Lujan, but 

 also with several brought by the writer from the coast of the Province. 



9. The marks on the bones may well have been made by rodents, 

 for markings of such origin are very common in Argentina, but it can 



21535°— Bull. 52—12 13 



