aSDLiaKAJ SKELETAL REMAINS OP EARLY MAN 235 



In 1890 a brief report on the remains was presented to tlie Congress 

 of Americanists at Paris by Vilanova.^ In it we read that "the lower 

 jaw is very large; the condyles are slightly oblique to facilitate move- 

 ment from before backward, wliich with the type of wear presented 

 by the crowns of the teeth, indicates the frugivoroiis diet of the indi- 

 vidual. The foramen magnum occupies a more backward position 

 than in civihzed man, which would give a somewhat inchned posi- 

 tion to the body. The sternum presents a natural perforation, a 

 very strange thing in our species. Finally, the dorsal part of the 

 spme contains 13 instead of the usual 12 vertebrae. These remains 

 were found by Senor Carles in the channel of the Rio Samborombon, 

 an affluent of the Rio de La Plata, at a very slight distance from a 

 nearly complete skeleton of a Megatherium in the Pampean forma- 

 tion." 2 



Shortly before this skeleton had come into the possession of the 

 museum at Valencia, Spain. It had never been studied tlioroughly. 

 Notwithstanding this, however, it was later, and gradually with 

 more and more definiteness, classified by Amegliino as a representa- 

 tive of a race characterized by sternal perforation and 18 lumbo- 

 dorsal vertebrae. In 1906^ the skeleton was attributed to the upper- 

 most Tertiary strata. The remarks concerning this are as follows : 



"The remams of man from the Superior Pliocene indicate a small 

 race, reaching the height of approximately 1.50 m., with a frontal 

 curve of medium elevation, without, or with only slight, supraorbital 

 swellings, with a sternal perforation and 18 dorso-lumbar vertebrae. 

 These last characteristics are very primitive and this race was made 

 a distinct species, named by Kobelt Homo pliocenicus." * 



Fhially, in Ameghino's "Geologia, Paleogeografia," etc. (1910), the 

 Samborombon find is apparently connected with that of the Arroyo 

 Siasgo; the "race" becomes a definite new species characterized 

 (p. 24) as follows : 



"In the Superior Pampean, ia the more recent strata of the 

 Bonaerean horizon, we encounter the Homo caputinclinatus, of 

 stature equally small (1.40 to 1.50 m.) and of 18 dorso-lumbar 

 vertebrae, with a front scarcely a little less depressed than in the 

 Homo pampseus, but without supraorbital arch; the skull is ex- 

 cessively long and narrow (cephalic index in the neighborhood of 66), 

 the parietal region is very high, glabella strongly inverted downward 

 but not backward, the nasal bones very broad and without transver- 



1 Vilanova, J., L'homme fossile du Rio Samborombon, in C. R., Congr. int. Amir, 8™= sess., 1890, 

 Paris, 1892, pp. 351-352. 



2 De Carles: A piece of the lower jaw of Scelidotherium. Ameghino: The lower jaw of Scelidotherium. 

 Vilanova: A nearly complete skeleton of Mejatherium. 



3 Ameghino, F., Les formations sedimentaires, etc.; in Anal. Mm. Nac. Buenos Aires, xv (ser. m, t. 

 vra, 1906), pp. 447-448. 



* In Globus, us., Braunschweig, 1891, pp. 132-136. 



