RECENT DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO EARLY MAN 



IN AMERICA 



By Ales Hrdlicka 



INTRODUCTION 



SINCE the publication M'^ the writer of critical reviews of previous 

 reports and evidence relating to early man in North and South 

 America,^ only a few newer cases of this nature have accumu- 

 lated, one or two of which at least demand serious attention. 



From South America we have had the report of additional mineral- 

 ized bones, by Dr. Juan B. Ambrosetti. foi- which, however, no 

 definite claim of great antiquity has been made.^ 



There were also several newspaper and other reports, in the name 

 of Carlos Ameghino and b}' other Argentinian observers, on the find- 

 ing of a nicely shaped quartzite arrowpoint, of a type well known 

 along the eastern coast of Argentina, in a femur of " Toxodon 

 chapalmalenms ,^'' an animal of Tertiary provenience. . The arrow- 

 point, Ameghino concludes, " was without doubt introduced into the 

 femur hy the Tertiary man, contemporary of the Toxodon."^ 



A much more noteworthy" report on the finding of remains of 

 early man in South America was that of the Yale Peruvian Expedi- 

 tion of 1011. This report, and that of the same expedition in 1912, 

 resemble and contrast most instruct iAel}'^ with the majoritj^ of the 

 Argentina reports, and well deserve extended treatment. - 



From North America we have two remarkable reports relating to 

 man's antiquity : One on the so-called Rancho La Brea man from, 

 the asphalt pits of California, pits known as the richest deposits of 

 skeletal remains of Quaternary animals: and the other on the " Vero 

 man " from Florida, whose bones were found in association with those 

 of mastodons, tapirs, and other species from early Quaternary. Both 

 of these finds will also be dealt with in detail in the following pages. 



1 Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America, Bull. 3.1, 

 Bur. Avier. Ethn., 1907 ; Early Man in South America, Bull. 52, Bur. Anicr. Eiliii.. 191-!. 



2 Compte-rendu XFV Conrjr. Intern. iVAnihropologie et O'Archfologie prthist., vol. 

 II, Gen&ve, 1913 ; Proc. AT'/// Intern. Cong. Americani.it.^. London, 1914, pp. 5-8. 



^ Physis, Communicaciones, No, 9, t. ii, pp. 36—39 (no place, no date). Also La Nacion, 

 Nov, 22 and Dec. 27, 1017 ; and Annales del Museo d'Historia Natural de Buenos Aires, 

 XXVI, pp, 417-450, 1915, 



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