252 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 52 



The face is wanting. The lower jaw is present though defective. 

 It is quite large and strong, and presents throughout ordinary 

 Indian-hke features. The sj^mphysis is approximately 3.8 cm. high; 

 between the first and second molars the height of the bone is 3.4 cm., 

 and the smallest breadth of the ascending ramus is 3.6 cm. The 

 maximum tliickness of the left horizontal ramus (the right being 

 deficient) is 1.7 cm. The chin is somewhat square and of medium 

 prominence. The whole ascending ramus is strong. The notch is deep. 



Femur, — A portion of a right, adult mascuhne femur. 



The surface of the specimen has been covered with a tliin deposit 

 of grayish calcareous matter, most of wliich, however, has been 

 rubbed off. 



The bone was about 41 cm. long and moderately strong, the 

 principal diameters at middle being: lateral 2.45 cm., antero-posterior 

 3.15 cm., at subtrochanteric flattening, antero-posterior (minimum) 

 2.4 cm., lateral (maximum) 3.15 cm. They give a pilasteric index 

 of 128.6 and a platymeric index of 76.2. 



The bone shows numerous markings, which Amegliino regards as 

 the work of man, but all of wliich were evidently made by the teeth 

 of rodents, especially by those of a rodent of large size, probably a 

 viscacha. In this way the large trochanter has been entirely cut 

 away, the marks of teeth all radiating from the cavity of the bone. 

 Four parallel cuts, all exactly alike, are seen below the edge remaining 

 after the cutting away of the great trochanter. Large gnawings are 

 also visible on the hnea aspera, while still other traces of teeth exist 

 in two places on the shaft. These cuts are all transverse. Most of 

 them are in the form of V-shaped grooves with one plane wider than 

 the other, and were made by a rodent's incisor cutting sideways, a 

 frequent practice with these animals. Other cuts are more nearly 

 square, with flat bottoms. On the postero-external surface, just 

 below the middle, there are two parallel cuts of the latter variety, 

 which dispel all doubt as to the rodent origin of the incisors. On the 

 linea aspera, 11.4 cm. from the upper edge of the bone, are six 

 such fiat-bottomed cuts; these are in pairs, each pair being separated 

 from the neighboring marks by a slight vertical ridge; and the best 

 marked among these are each slightl}^ more than 1 mm. broad. It 

 would be impossible to produce this effect with a knife. There is not a 

 single feature about all these cuts that points to man's instrumentahty ; 

 they were produced, plainly, by a sharp-edged chisel-hke tooth. 

 The region from wliich the bone came contains the viscacha; in fact 

 some of the human bones collected here, as stated by de Carles, came 

 from a viscachera. This rodent brings all sorts of bones about and 

 into its lair, some of wliich it probably uses, as rodents in general use 

 hartl objects, for the benefit of its teeth, wliich otherwise would grow 

 too long. 



