^S4 BtJREAU OP AMERICAN ETHN0L66Y tBULL. 5-' 



"In the lacustrine deposit whicli contained the skeleton, there 

 were no other vestiges; but in the reddish Upper Pampean layer and 

 a short distance off, if not precisely above the skeleton, de Carles 

 gathered the base of the antler of a large deer, now preserved in the 

 Museum of Buenos Aires, and the mandible of a species of Sceli- 

 dotherium."^ 



On page 85 of the same publication there are, finally, a few words 

 concerning the skeleton itself, as follows: ''The third skeleton of the 

 fossil man from the Superior Pliocene, gathered in the Rio Sam- 

 borombon, has liitherto been mentioned only by Burmeister, without 

 a single word having been said about its features. It has remained 

 undescribed in the possession of its discoverer. 



''I have seen this specimen, though but casually, and observed 

 m it some characteristics which attracted my attention. Among 

 these were the small stature of the individual, who probably was of 

 the female sex, and the possession of 18 dorso-lumbar vertebrae, an 

 extremely rare anomaly in the existing races, but which should have 

 been more frequent in the races of antiquity and wdthout doubt was 

 a constant characteristic of some of man's ancestors. In the ster- 

 num there also exists a vacuity or perforation, I do not now recollect 

 at what height, an anomaly that is equally rare in the existing races. 

 The lower jaw is in a perfect state of preservation, is strong and 

 massive, and evidently belonged to a brachycephalic skull, without 

 doubt of the race which Roth encountered." 



These few and ill-estimated results of a casual examination of the 

 skeleton serve as a basis for some important conclusions. Referring 

 to the Samborombon skeleton and to that of Arrecifes, Amegliino 

 says (ibid.): "We hold thus a proof that, during the formation of 

 the Inferior [^1 Pampean, the Province of Buenos Aires was inhabited 

 over the same area, though it is not shown that it was absolutely 

 syn chronically, by two distinct human races; one dolichocephalic 

 and with marked signs of inferiority in the skull, the other brachyce- 

 phalic, of a skull apparently more elevated, and representing by the 

 characteristics of the skeleton — if the existence of 18 dorso-lumbar 

 vertebrae, in the only example with an entire vertebral column thus 

 far known, is not an anomaly (which would be peculiarly rare) — a 

 very inferior race. The representatives of both races were hip- 

 sistenocephalic, and of an exceedingly small stature." 



1 A written statement on the subject, made by Seflor Carles to the writer while accompanying him on 

 the way to the Ovejero finds, reads as follows: "At the confluence of the Rio Dulce and Samborombdn, in 

 a barranca of gentle declivity and in a small pocket of bluish-green lacustrine mud, probably deposited in an 

 excavation in the loess (red Pampean), I found the human skeleton, \rithout any vestige of any object of 

 industry. It was divided nearly in the middle into two portions which were at a short distance one from 

 the other, but in the same locality and at onlj' a few meters distance (in the red Pampean) I foimd a piece 

 of the lower jaw of Scclidothirium lepfoccphalum and a part of an antler of a large deer." 



2 Should probably read "Superior."— A. H. 



