hedliCka] skeletal EEMAINS OF EAELY MAN 233 



THE SAMBOROMBON SKELETON 

 History and Reports 



The first mention of the Samborombon skeleton is found, in 

 1884, in Burmeister's note on the Pampean formation.* This reads 

 simply: "A second fossil human skeleton has been found here by Sr. 

 de Carles." 



The first details regarding the discovery are not met with until 

 1889 in Ameghino's Fossil ^lammals of Argentina.^ On page 47 

 of this publication we read: "In 1882 D. Enrique de Carles, trav- 

 eling naturalist of the Museo Nacional of Buenos Aires, exhumed 

 from the Superior Pampean of the Arroyo de Samboromb6n a nearly 

 complete human skeleton, interred at a considerably lower level than 

 some bones of a Scelidotherium and other extinct animals. The 

 report on this specimen, which is most noteworthy in many respects, 

 has not as yet been published." 



On page 66 this is supplemented by the following: ''The Arroyo 

 Samborombon, in the vicinity of its confluence with the Arroyo 

 Dulce, has a channel 3 to 3^ meters in depth. Its banks, now ver- 

 tical, now sloping, are formed, with the exception of the uppermost 

 humus layer, which does not reach 40 cm. in tliickness, of reddish 

 Pampean deposits, in which are intercallated here and there small 

 deposits of yellowish-green lacustrine Pampean sediments. The 

 latter are nearly always of slight thickness as well as extent. 



"In one of these deposits of the lacustrine Pampean along the same 

 Arroyo of Samborombon, at a very sliort distance from the mouth 

 of the Arroyo Dulce, there was found by the traveling naturalist of 

 the Museo Nacional of Buenos Aires, E. de Carles, a nearly com- 

 plete human skeleton, with the exception of the skull, of which there 

 remains only the basal part of the occiput and the lower jaw. The 

 bones were found articulated, although the skeleton was divided 

 into two parts, the trunk and the superior members with the skull 

 being in one, and the pelvis with the sacrum and the bones of the 

 lower limbs in the other, at a distance of 1 meter from the first. 

 The only visible part exposed by the waters was the skull, of which, 

 on account of the exposure, there remains only a relatively small 

 portion. 



"This lacustrine deposit or layer in which the skeleton reposed 

 was 40 or 50 cm. in thickness; it rested on the red Pampean and 

 was covered by the reddish deposits, 1 meter in thickness, belonging 

 to the same Pampean formation. 



1 Burmeister, G., Bermerkungen in Bezug auf die Pampas Formation; in Vcrh.Ber. Oes. fur Anthr., 

 Ethn., und Urg., Ber in, 1S84, p. 247. 

 i Ameghino, F., Contribuci6n al conocimiento de los mamiferos fdsiles, etc., pp. 47, 66, So. 



