HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 93 



While it is probably true that as yet no unequivocal evidence of the agency 

 of man in the fashioning of the bone fragments from this cave has been 

 presented, in all fairness to those who may undertake from the study of such 

 materials to give us something of the earliest history of the human race, we 

 should not forget that, at the very period where the discrimination between 

 artifacts and natural objects is most important, it becomes most difficult. 

 In the early stages of the development of man, such implements as were used 

 by him were probably in many cases simply special iforms of natural objects 

 which were, in their original form, well adapted to meet his primitive needs. 

 The earliest true artifacts were objects of this class showing only a little 

 modification.* 



Mercer searched the caves of Yucatan in vain for traces of early 



man^ and others have not been more fortunate in 

 Yucatan Caves any part of the great Central American area in 



which the race has achieved its greatest cultural tri- 

 umphs, and in which traces of early occupancy might reasonably be 

 expected to exist. 



The evidence obtained thus far from the caves of South America 



is not more decisive. The most important finds are 

 Brazilian Caves those of Luud in the caves of Brazil, but Ilrdlicka 



has shown that even this evidence, although accepted 

 by some authorities, is not worthy of full confidence.^ His A'iew of 

 the evidence is expressed briefly as follows : 



In view of all the above facts and considerations, it seems quite evident that 

 the human remains from the Lagoa Santa caves can not be accepted, without 

 further and more conclusive proofs, as belonging to a race which lived con- 

 temporaneously with the extinct species of animals found in the same caves; 

 and there is no reliable foundation in the reiuainder of the data relating to 

 the specimens on which such geologic antiquity could be based.^ 



Nine categories of evidence have been luentioned as available to 

 the chronologist of the race, but of these the geo- 

 Summary logical Category alone can be expected to supply an 



adequate chronology of man in America. So far, how- 

 ever, the expectation is far from realization, the research being beset 

 by many perplexing difficulties. The superficial formations from 

 which the evidence has been and must be derived are treacherous custo- 

 dians of the records intrusted to their keeping. The waters uncover, 

 transport, intermingle, and redeposit the traces of man's presence; 

 ice scores deeply into the surface, likewise destroying the normal 

 sequence; the winds sweep the sands into deceptive semblance of 

 stratification, burying and uncovering and burying again the relics 

 of all periods, imposing thus on the unwary student false and con- 

 fusing chronologies; gravity with persistent activity carries down 



1 Merriam, Recent Cave Exploration in California, pp. 224—225. 



2 Mercer, The Hill Caves of Yucatan. 



3 Hrdlifka, Early Man in South America, p. 153. 

 *Ibid., p. 184. 



