498 THE AGE OF MAMMALS 



handiwork in the Shasta Caves (Potter Creek and Samwel) of California, 

 which contain a pure though late Pleistocene fauna. Examination by 

 Putnam ^ led him to the conclusion that the evidence of man's handi- 

 work, consisting chiefly of two perforated bones, is sufficiently important 

 to warrant belief that man lived in the vicinity of these caves. Merriam,- 

 however (1906), adopted the somewhat more conservative conclusion that 

 the "splintered, polished, perforated fragments of bone, etc., found in the 

 Potter Creek and Samwel caves look like human artifacts, but cannot be 

 pronounced such with certainty at present." 



Human remains in cave deposits. — It is noteworthy that while the 

 European cave deposits are of late Pleistocene age, frequently containing 

 remains of man, American caves are chiefly of mid-Pleistocene age, and not 

 until we reach, the Potter Creek (p. 475) and Samwel caves (p. 477) in 

 California do we find any evidence, and that not conclusive, of the existence 

 of man. 



In the East this has been made a subject of special invesfigation by 

 Mercer.^ His journey of six hundred miles was especially directed to those 

 mountain passes and river ways by which early man may have first pene- 

 trated the great forests of the Appalachians in traveling from the Pacific 

 coast and plains region of the West. In every case investigated along the 

 Tennessee, Ohio, and Kanawha rivers in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, and 

 Kentucky, remains of man were found associated only with the recent fauna 

 such as the deer, gray fox, raccoon, opossum, black bear, turkey, etc. 



The only exception was the Big Bone Cave, Van Buren County, Ten- 

 nessee, where nine hundred feet from the entrance were found remains of the 

 fossil sloth, megalonyx, fresh in appearance, with remains of the cartilages 

 attached, associated with fragments of reeds which had apparently been 

 used as torches by Indians, thus presenting evidence of the contemporaneity 

 of the modern Indian with the extinct megalonyx. This evidence con- 

 vinced Mercer that at least in the eastern valley of Tennessee at a height 

 of six to seven hundred feet above sea level man coexisted with the great 

 sloth. Again, in Zirkel's Cave, Jefferson County, Tennessee, two faunal 

 levels were discovered, the lower containing the tapir, peccary, and bear, 

 the upper containing the marmot, or woodchuck (Marmota), opossum 

 (Didelphys), rabbit, and cave rat associated with Indian remains. This 

 appears to be the first instance thus far discovered in eastern North America 

 of the occupation of caves by man, and of a modern fauna overlying an 

 ancient fauna. The second instance is that of Look Out Cave on the left 



• Putnam, F. W., Evidence of the Work of Man on Objects from the Quaternary Caves in 

 California. Amer. AnthropoL, n.s., Vol. VIII, 1905, pp. 229-235. 



- Merriam, J. C, Recent Cave Exploration in California. Amer. AnthropoL, n.s., 

 Vol. VIII, no. 2, Apr.-June, 1906, pp. 221-228. 



^ Mercer, H. C, Cave Exploration in the Eastern United States. Dept. Amer. Prehist. 

 Archceol., Univ. Penn., July 4, 1894; Cave Exploration in the Eastern United States. Dept. 

 Amer. Prehist. Archceol., Univ. Penn., June 4, 1896. 



