196 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



ordinary Aymara type, but a frontal deformation inclining gradually 

 from, the lowest part of the front to the vertex, similar to the Toulou- 

 sian deformation recently presented before you by M. Broca. Some 

 one remarked a while ago that this skull shows Neanderthaloid char- 

 acters; this is an error, it is deformed." 



Hamy said the black skull recalls, trait for trait, the crania of the 

 Aymara. 



Finally, Broca expressed the opinion that "it is necessary to be 

 reserved in regard to the geologic chronology of America in general 

 and especially that of South America. . . . Notwithstanding 

 this, it would be of great interest to know to what epoch the deformed 

 skull of which Hamy has just spoken and the form of which appears 

 to me characteristic, belongs." 



Critical Remabks 



The foregoing citations include about all the information extant 

 relating to the Rio Negro "fossil" crania. Nothing further con- 

 cerning the specimens was published by Moreno. 



Nearly 10 years later the finds under consideration were mentioned 

 by Ameghino,^ who, however, attached to them but little importance. 

 In his work on the fossil mammals o^ Argentina he refers to them as 

 follows : 



"It seems that sites belonging to this epoch (Mesolithic) exist also 

 at the southern extremity of the Province, in the valley of the Rio 

 Negro, and the famous 'fossil' skull Moreno referred to in the Bulle- 

 tin of the Anthropological Society of Paris came probably from one of 

 these. Moreno said that he found the skull in a deposit of Pampean 

 loam (arcilla pampeana) in the valley of that river, and that he also 

 obtained from the same some scales of the carapace of a glyptodon. 

 But, there exist no vestiges of Pampean terrane in the entire lower 

 course of the Rio Negro, nor has there ever been encountered, to my 

 Icnowledge, the smallest fragment of a carapace of a glyptodon. The skull 

 in question shows by its f6ssilization that it belong.s without doubt to 

 a very remote epoch, but the general state of the bone and calcareous 

 incrustation which it presents on its endocraneon surface, together 

 with its texture and ashy color, locate it conclusively among objects 

 derived from the Post-Pampean, and in all probability its antiquity, 

 if greatest, may reach the Mesolithic epoch." 



I^ehmann-Nitsche, in his work on the Fossil Man of Argentina, 

 makes no mention of the skulls under consideration and does not 

 even refer to them in his bibliography, evidence that he does not con- 

 sider the specimens as having any relation to the Pampean deposits. 



The writer himself has not seen the skulls and can not speak of them 

 at first hand, but Senor Moreno, now a member of the Chamber of 



I Ameghino, F., Contribucion al conocimiento de los mamlferos fdsiles de la Republica Argentina; in 

 A<Aai de la Academia, Nacioml de Ciencias de Cdrdoha, vi, Buenos Aires, 1889, p. 52. 



