ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCES OF MAN'S ANTIQUITY 

 AT VERO, FLORIDA 



GEORGE GRANT MacCURDY 



Yale University 



The apparent association of human remains and artifacts with 

 fossil animal remains in Pleistocene deposits is always and every- 

 where sufficient to challenge the attention of scientists. This 

 is especially true of the New World, where Pleistocene man has 

 not yet won a place in the prehistoric hall of fame; hence the wide 

 interest taken in the announcement by Dr. E. H. Sellards, 1 state 

 geologist of Florida, that he and his colleagues had found such an 

 association at Vero, Florida. 



As one of several invited to investigate the circumstances of 

 the find on the spot, the writer obtained leave of absence from 

 Yale University for this purpose, and visited the Vero site during 

 the week of October 23-29 as the guest of Dr. Sellards. To him 

 and to his assistant, Mr. H. Gunter, as well as to his local associates, 

 Messrs. Frank Ayers and Isaac M. Weills, grateful acknowledg- 

 ments are due for facilities so generously extended. The writer's 

 visit approximately coincided with those of Dr. Rollin T. Chamber- 

 lin of Chicago and Drs. O. P. Hay, A. Hrdlicka, and T. Wayland 

 Vaughan of Washington, D.C. The headquarters of the party were 

 at the site itself, one-half mile north of the village of Vero, and 

 easily reached by the highway that parallels the railroad tracks. 



The drainage canal which cuts through the site is of itself 

 sufficient proof of the flatness of the country. The human remains 

 and artifacts and the fossil animal remains were all found at the 

 junction of two lateral valleys, which united to form the trunk of a 

 wider valley; in this valley until recently a stream followed an 

 "ill-defined, anastomosing, and frequently changing channel." At 



1 Amer. Jour. Sci., XLII (July, 1916); Eighth Ann. Rep. Fla. State Geol. Survey, 

 pp. 121-60, 1916; Science, N.S., XLIV (October 27, 1916). 



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