FOSSIL HUMAN REMAINS AT VERO, FLORIDA 49 



quite like that of the animal bones from the same deposits, though 

 the approach, especially in parts of skeleton No. II, is close. Even 

 if they were identical, however, in this respect, the fact could not be 

 taken as a gauge of their contemporaneity with the animal bones. 

 Mineralization is a chemical-mechanical process, which runs its 

 course slowly or rapidly, according to circumstances. Under 

 similar conditions two bones, ages apart, would "fossilize" in a 

 similar manner; but one of the bones would have completed the 

 process long before the other. The writer has dealt with this 

 subject in his report on "Ancient Man in North and South Amer- 

 ica." 1 In the corresponding work on North America will also be 

 found described examples of human bones, petrified in different 

 ways, from the west coast of Florida. One of the skeletons from 

 that locality, in the possession of the United States National 

 Museum, is apparently even more completely petrified than the 

 human bones from Vero. In Florida, mineralization of bones 

 or their inclusion in geological deposits has little chronological 

 significance. 



The "fresh-water marl" that covers the deposits in the locality 

 of skeleton No. I is not found over the muck layer, or layer No. 3, 

 from which came skeleton No. II, but the point is immaterial. The 

 layer, except where exposed, is not or is but partly consolidated; and 

 even if it were solid it would have little bearing on the antiquity 

 of whatever may lie underneath. The writer found a very good 

 demonstration of this after he left Vero, on the Demere Key, off 

 Fort Myers on the west coast of Florida, and not very far south of 

 the latitude of Vero. He found there a low sand burial mound 

 the entire surface of which, consisting of sand, organic matter and 

 shells, materials gathered from the vicinity of the mound and from 

 the seashore, was consolidated to the depth of from four to sixteen 

 inches to such a degree that in places it was almost impossible to 

 penetrate it with a mattock. This "rock" included numerous 

 human bones, even skulls, a series of which is now in the National 

 Museum. Its age is possibly post-Columbian, for there were found 

 on the Key fragments of Spanish pottery and glass, while burial 

 sand mounds on neighboring keys yielded glass beads. 



1 Bureau American Ethnology Bulls. 33 and 52. 



