FOSSIL HUMAN REMAINS AT VERO, FLORIDA 41 



canal from the Florida East Coast Railway on the east to a point 

 about 580 feet westward from it. The stratigraphic succession 

 may be summarized as follows: (1) The lowest observed bed is an 

 arenaceous shell marl of Pleistocene age, the exposed thickness of 

 which is from 2 to 6 feet. (2) Unconformably above bed No. 1 

 are sands, some muck, and marl, having a combined thickness 

 ranging up to as much as 5 or 6 feet. This formation was deposited 

 in fresh water and contains numerous species of vertebrates, which 

 clearly indicate its Pleistocene age, and shells of about 30 species 

 of land and fresh-water mollusks. The discovery of a locality at 

 which so many species of extinct vertebrates are represented is of 

 much geologic interest and importance. Within the sands human 

 remains were found at two places, according to Dr. Sellards. 

 (3) Overlying No. 2 is a deposit of muck, tree trunks, and other 

 vegetable matter, in which are stringers of sand, in places con- 

 taining marine shells, perhaps derived from bed No. 1 by erosion 

 farther upstream. This deposit was accumulated in a shallow, 

 relatively wide, channel eroded in No. 2, and has a thickness of 3 

 feet 6 inches in the middle of the channel, but it is much thinner 

 on the channel sides. Whether its geologic age is Pleistocene or 

 Recent has not been positively determined. Dr. Sellards reports 

 human bones from near the base of this bed and from sands which 

 lie at its base along the contact with No. 2. 1 



Criteria for determining the geologic age of the human remains. — ■ 

 Previous investigations having shown that human artifacts may, 

 by many agencies, be carried below the surface of the ground and 

 become imbedded in unconsolidated deposits, and as it is well 

 known that human bones may have been either naturally or arti- 

 ficially buried, the occurrence of artifacts and human bones in 

 association with Pleistocene fossils does not prove the Pleistocene 

 age of man. It seems to me that the only indisputable geologic 

 proof of the Pleistocene age of man must consist in finding a con- 

 tinuous undisturbed bed or layer of demonstrable Pleistocene age 

 above the human remains (artifacts or bones) whose age is under 

 investigation. The relative dissociation and the significance of 



1 Eighth Ann. Rept. Florida Geol. Survey, 1916, pp. 140-42, PL 17, Fig. 1, text 

 Fig. 14. 



