FURTHER STUDIES AT VERO, FLORIDA ^ 



ROLLIN T. CHAMBERLIN 



University of Chicago 



In a recent number of this Journal there appeared a symposium 

 on the age and relations of fossil human remains found near Vero, 

 Florida. 1 The several investigators attacked the problem from 

 quite different viewpoints and developed considerable difference of 

 opinion. Later Dr. Sellards planned to spend an additional week 

 at Vero with Dr. E. W. Berry in further study of the critical points 

 involved in the case. He was good enough to invite the writer to 

 join in this further inquiry, and this invitation was cordially 

 accepted. As a result of the wider examination of essential points 

 made possible by my second visit, I desire to amend and extend 

 the interpretation of the history of the human bones and associated 

 relics previously offered. 



My studies on the first visit were given almost wholly to an 

 endeavor to work out the physical history and time relations of 

 the formations at Vero, as this was regarded as a step necessary to 

 the safe interpretation of the relics embraced in them. This 

 seemed especially necessary because the dates of the appearance of 

 man and of the disappearance of the extinct animals were among the 

 very points brought into question and could not themselves be used 

 as decisive criteria. On the other hand, the nature and successions 

 of the formations afford some of the most critical evidence bearing 

 on these dates. It will perhaps be recalled that the history of the 

 formations was found to be rather definitely deployed, and that 

 the time relations of the deposits were quite well indicated by the 

 physical criteria available, irrespective of their fossil contents. 

 My former reading of this history was confirmed in all essential 



1 E. H. Sellards, R. T. Chamberlin, T. W. Vaughan, Ales Hrdlicka, O. P. Hay, 

 and G. G. MacCurdy, "Symposium on the Age and Relations of the Fossil Human 

 Remains Found at Vero, Florida," Jour. Geol., XXV (1917), 1-62. 



667 



