NOTE ON THE DEPOSITS CONTAINING HUMAN RE- 

 MAINS AND ARTIFACTS AT VERO, FLORIDA 



E. H. SELLARDS 

 Geological Survey of Florida, Tallahassee, Florida 



The deposits containing human remains and artifacts at Vero, 

 Florida, have been described in the issue of the Journal of Geology 

 of January-February, 1917. 1 Among interpretations advanced in 

 connection with that discussion, that proposed by Dr. R. T. Cham- 

 berlin differed in one important respect from that offered by 

 the writer. To Dr. Chamberlin it seemed that the fossils found 

 in the stream bed, or most of them, were secondary, having been 

 washed in from a near-by older formation, while the writer held 

 that these fossils were primary. In order, if possible, to harmonize 

 these views, Dr. Chamberlin very considerately returned to Florida 

 for the purpose of re-examining the deposits and was present with 

 the writer at Vero from March 16 to March 20, 191 7. Professor 

 E. W. Berry, who is engaged in a study of the fossil plants, was 

 also present, as well as Mr. H. Gunter and Mr. Isaac M. Weills. 

 The additional collections made include potsherds, bone imple- 

 ments, flints, vertebrate and plant fossils. 



The banks of both the main and the lateral canals were re- 

 examined, and it was found that the upland formation from which 

 Dr. Chamberlin assumed that the vertebrate fossils had washed was 

 almost if not entirely non-fossiliferous. These new observations 

 have served to define more closely the problems to be solved. 

 It is evident that the fossils found at this locality are primary 

 fossils in the stream bed and were not washed in from the older 

 formation of the uplands near by. It is quite obvious also, both 

 on old and on new evidence, and in conformity with views 

 previously expressed, that the human remains and artifacts of this 

 deposit do not represent burials by human agency as was main- 

 tained by Dr. Hrdlicka in the former discussion. The strati- 

 graphic evidence on this point is so conclusive that it is certain 

 that the hypothesis of burial by human agency may be eliminated 



1 "Symposium on the Age and Relations of the Fossil Human Remains Found at 

 Vero, Florida," XXV (1917), 1-62. 



659 



