holmes] 



ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 



71 



Other averred traces of geologically ancient man are few in 



number and in nearly all cases are lacking in au- 



The Lansing Man tliority as chrondlogical evidence. Perhaps the most 



im])oi'tant instance is that of the fossil man of 



Lansing, Kans., about which there has been much discussion, cert:un 



students assigning the remains to the lowan pliase of the glacial 



Fig. 32. SscI ion showin'; tha goological iiosilion of f lie Linsing skolcton. a, Tannol : ft, location of find. 



epoch and others advocating the view that it is probably postglacial 

 and compai-atively recent. The name is given to a partially dis- 

 membered human skeleton found in 1902 under 20 feet of undis- 

 turbed silt, 70 feet in from the face 

 of a Missouri Eiver blutf (hg. ?>2). 

 The bones lay partly under a large 

 limestone slal) imbedded in a mass 

 of talus at the foot of a shale and 

 limestone clitf against which the silt 

 had been deposited. The silt deposit 

 was probably due to an uj^building 

 partly by wash, partly by winds, 

 partly by creep from the adjacent 

 hills, partly by sediment from the 

 JNIissouri. It appears that this de- 

 posit, while possibly geologically 

 ancient is not necessarily so and may 

 be comparatively recent. The bones 

 themselves do not give countenance 

 to the theory of great antiquity.^ 

 According to Ilrdlicka - the skull i^ 

 not perceptibly fossilized, and is practically identical in type Avith 

 crania of the historic Indians of the general region (fig. 83). It has 



1 The history of the discovery of the specimen is g-iven by Wright in Proc. Boston l^oc. 

 Nat. Hist., January, ISOO, February, 1S9L Emmon.s's statement regarding tlie age of the 

 formations involved is given in the same connection. Its authenticity is questioned by 

 Powell in Poj). i^ci. Munthhj, July, 1S9.'>. See also Handbook of .Vmerican Indians, art. 

 'Nampii IwiKjp. 



" The Lansing Skeleton, p. 324. 



Fig. 33. Frontal view of the Lansing skull, 



Ivansas. 



