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BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 66 



Florida. The feature of especial interest at this locality is the- presence of 

 fossil human remains in association with the Pleistocene vertebrates. Human 

 remains have been found at this locality in two separate strata which differ in 

 age, the one being superimposed upon the other. The contemporaneity of man 

 and the Pleistocene fossils is based not upon a single discovery, but upon suc- 

 cessive discoveries, inchiding bones from two human skeletons and in addition 

 flints and implements made by man. The geologic conditions at this locality 

 fortunately are favorable for a correct placing of the fossils, as the older 

 human remains are here found in a fresh-water stratum which rests upon 

 marine shell marl and is overlaid by a laminated fluviatile deposit. Although 

 lying near the surface, the possibility of the human bones representing a recent 

 burial is excluded by the fact that the overlying laminated stratum is undis- 

 turbed. The condition of preservation as well as the abundance of the asso- 

 ciated Pleistocene fossils is such as to show that they could not have washetl 



Fig. 1. — Vero, the drainage canal, and vicinity. The arrow points to the location of the 

 finds. (From survey map furnished the Smithsonian Institution by William H. Kim- 

 ball, chief engineer in charge of the construction of the canal.) 



into this deposit from an older formation. There is thus conclusive evidence 

 that the human remains and the associated fossils are contemporaneous. These 

 as.sociated fossils, including mammals, birds, batrachians, reptiles, and fishes, 

 afford incontestable evidence of the Pleistocene age of the deposits. 



The occurrence of fossils at Vero was brought to Dr. Sellards's 

 attention toward the end of 1913 by Mr. I. M. Weills, a local col- 

 lector. Their presence — 



[P. 124] first became known as a result of the construction of a drainage 

 canal made by the Indian River Farms Company. Throughout the greater 

 part of its course this canal, which extends from the coast several miles inland, 

 cuts through the surface materials, iucluding sand, marl, and muck beds, and 

 into marine shell marl. In the marine marl, invertebrates are found in abun- 

 dance and in an excellent state of preservation, while in the sands, fresh-water 

 marls, and muck beds, vertebrates and fresh-water invertebrates are not infre- 



