HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS AY 
there is no possibility of definite racial determination. The specimen 
bears evidence of what appear to be traces of human workmanship; 
the details of these, however, as well as the details of the physical 
examination and the archeology of the find, will be dealt with by 
- Professor Putnam. 
XIV.—THE LANSING SKELETON 
_ The skeleton of an adult and a portion of the lower jaw of an infant 
_ were discovered in February, 1902, by the sons of Mr. M. Concannon, 
a farmer near Lansing, Kansas, in digging a tunnel which was to 
serve for storing apples and other farm products. This tunnel enters 
horizontally into a low bench or terrace situated at the base of the 
Missouri river bluffs at the entrance to a small side valley. The 
child’s jaw lay about 60 feet, the adult skeleton about 70 feet, from 
the entrance of the tunnel and 20 feet below the surface. The deposit 
in which the bones were embedded and which forms the bulk of the 
bench is an undisturbed loess-like silt, through which at all levels are 
scattered fragments of limestone and shale, the whole presenting great 
variety of composition and considerable irregularity of accumulation. 
The find became known to men of science through Mr. M. C. Long, 
curator of the museum of Kansas City, who, on reading of the discov- 
ery in a local paper, immediately visited the locality in company with 
Mr. E. Butts, a civil engineer. Before the end of 1902 the locality 
had been visited and examined by many prominent geologists, and a 
deep exploratory trench was sunk near the tunnel by Mr. G. Fowke, 
under the direction of Professor Holmes of the Bureau of American 
Ethnology. Scientific reports concerning the find were published by 
Williston, Upham,’ Winchell,° Chamberlin,? Holmes,¢ and Fowke./ 
It appears that no question has been raised as to the correctness of the 
accounts regarding the location of the human bones; but there are 
important differences of opinion concerning the geological age of the 
deposits and consequently the antiquity of the skeleton. Without 
going into details, it may be said that Professors Williston, Upham, 
and Winchell favored a considerable antiquity for both the deposits 
and the specimens, regarding the former as true loess, while Profes- 
sors Chamberlin, Calvin, Salisbury, and Holmes, with Fowke, judged 
the deposits to be not true loess but of a much more recent formation. 
* Science, August 1, 1902. 
> Science, August 29, 1902; American Geologist, September, 1902; American Anthro- 
pologist, n. s., IV, no. 3, 566, 1902. 
¢ American Geologist, September, 1902. 
4 Journal of Geology, October-November, 1902; also notes by Calvin and Salisbury in 
ibid. 
€ American Anthropologist, n. s., IV, no. 4, 743-752, 1902. 
? Bulletin 30 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pt. 1, 1907. 
