194 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



not be accepted as proven that they could have been made only by 

 certain species of ancient rodents. 



10. The contemporaneity of bones of fossil animals found m the 

 same general region with the human bones under consideration lacks 

 substantiation. 



11. Finally, morphologically the Seguin human bones offer, so far 

 as shown, nothhig indicating primitiveness of form or great age. 



On the basis of the above facts the inevitable conclusion is that the 

 Carcaraiia human remains should cease to be cited as representing a 

 South American man of geologic antiquity. 



THE ANCIENT PATAGONIANS 

 History and Observations on the Specimens 



At the meeting of the Anthropological Society of Paris, July 1, 

 1880, Francisco Moreno read a communication on "Two prehis- 

 toric skulls brought from the Rio Negro." ^ This report marks the 

 beginning of the written history of the so-called fossil Patagonian 

 crania. 



Sr. Moreno's communication was as follows: 



''The two skulls come from the ancient cemeteries of the Rio 

 Negro. They are representatives of races anterior to the Spanish 

 conquest and already extinct before that time. 



"The calva, which presents pathologic features, was exliumed by 

 me from a layer of sandy, yellowish clay, which forms the ancient 

 alluvia of the Rio Negro and appears altogether similar to the Qua- 

 ternary loam of the pampas. This layer is not continuous, but occurs 

 in knolls (mamelons) or ridges, which resemble old and but slightly 

 elevated islands or banks of an ancient delta. Near this skull I found 

 no bones of extinct animals, but, at the distance of some hundreds 

 of meters, I came across a few fragments of the carapace of a glypto- 

 doii, which presented the same external appearances as the human 

 skull. The color and the condition of the latter are quite the same 

 as in the majority of Quaternary remains. 



' ' The second skull is more modern but still very ancient ; I extracted 

 it from the ancient dunes, formerly mobile but now fixed, which in 

 the past lined the islands of the old stream at its former mouth near 

 Carmen. The first skull lay at a depth of nearly 4 meters, the second 

 at 2 meters, p] in the sand. The latter specimen is deformed in the 

 Aymara fashion and shows some scraping below the parietal. 



iMoreno, F. P., Sur deux cranes pr^historiquesde Rio-Negro; in Bull, rapportis Socd'Anthr., Paris, 3<^ 

 S&T., m, 1880, pp. 490-497. 



[2 In answer to the question by Hamj' as to the exact nature of the deposits in which tliis second skull was 

 found, Moreno states in another part of the paper (p. 495) that the deposits are "ancient dunes, now solidi- 

 fied [this should be understood to mean settled, fixed, not solidified like stone.— A. H.], close to the ancient 

 islands of the Rio Negro. The skull was found at a depth of 10 feet, in violet sand." There must be an 

 error in one of these figures.] 



