hrdli^ka] 



SKELETAL EEMAINS OP EARLY MAN 



199 



In a discussion concerning the memoir before the society ^ the 

 secretary, Senor Zeballos, stated in reply to some objections, that 

 the committee acted as it did in refusing the memoir because "its 

 author had committed a fundamental error, attributing a very 

 remote age to objects which were hardly three or four centuries old, 

 and had declared fossil that wliich is contemporaneous with the 

 modern alluvia." 



In 1878, after much further discussion of the subject, and a second 

 failure of the Argentine Scientific Society to publish the resubmitted 



Fig. 44. Transverse section of the stream Frias, demonstrating the geologic constitution of tlie strata 

 at the point where the fossil man of Mercedes was found, together with a plan of the excavation made in 

 exhuming the remains. 



1. The water-level; 



2. A thin layer of gravel found in excavating on the right side of the stream — material deposited by the 

 stream which it had washed from more elevated portions of its bed; 



3. A layer of vegetal mold 10 cm. in thickness, which contains numerous bones of domestic animals 

 introduce<l into the country since its occupation by Europeans; 



4. A stratum 40 cm. in thickness, containing the bones of animals indigenous to the country; 



5. A very clayey stratum 20 cm. in thickness, containing the bones of extinct species of animals but in 

 a poor state of preservation; 



6. A marly layer 30 cm. in thickness, in which the bones of the great extinct mammals, Mylodon, Glyp- 

 todon, etc., are found; 



7. A layer 60 cm. in thickness, not nearly so marly as the preceding; also contains remains of extinct 

 animals; 



8. A layer 5.5 cm. in thickness, of a reddish color, composed exclusively of fine sand and clay mixed 

 together; 



9. Stratum which contained tlie human bones. 



Stratum No. 9, which is more than 1.5 m. in thickness, is distinguished from the preceding only in 

 that it contains a larger proportion of clay. In this layer of Pampean .soil, at the base of the excavation 

 indicated in the diagram and at a lower level than the bed of the stream liuman bones were discovered, 

 together with rudely-shaped flints, apparently used in extracting the marrow from bones, a perforated 

 femur of Eutatus, bones with incised, and some of radiate, markings and striae, fragments of burnt bones, 

 fragments of burnt or baked earth, and a great quantity of charred vegetal substances. In the same 

 deposit, mingled with the objects mentioned, were found also a great many bones of animals, which indi- 

 cated the following species: [Here are named 12 genera and species of mammals and an ostrich.] 



memoir,^ Ameghino carried his collections to Europe and exhibited 

 them at the Universal Exposition in Paris. The same year he sent 

 also a note regarding the find, accompanied with a sketch showing 

 the strata at the Arroyo de Frias, to the American Naturalist.^ 



1 In Anales de la Sociedad Cientiflca Argentina, n, 1876; Ameghino, F., La antigiiedad, etc., n, p. 399. 



2 See Ameghino, F., ibid., p. 400 et seq. 



3 Vol. xu, 1878, pp. 827-829. 



