140 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
of an extinct species of bison. The Folsom points are somewhat elongated 
and pointed blades, with a truncated base which is usually a little excavated; 
and the middle of each face is hollowed by the skilful removal of a longi- 
tudinal flake, which allows it to be clasped by a projection from the end 
of the spear. These points were, therefore, hafted differently from any 
of those known from the Solutrean of western Europe. They show that 
the American late Palzolithic man evolved new ideas on the spot. 
The skeletal characters of this race of man are still not known with 
certainty. The only human bones and teeth hitherto dug up closely 
resemble the corresponding parts of the surviving North American 
Indians, and it is uncertain whether any of them are as old as the remains 
of the Pleistocene mammals with which they are supposed to have been 
sometimes associated. The Solutrean-like implements, however, have 
lately been satisfactorily proved to be contemporaneous with extinct 
mammals of Pleistocene age in several localities, especially in New Mexico, 
Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Nebraska. 
Two years ago, I had the privilege of visiting one of these localities, 
by the kind invitation of Dr. John C. Merriam, President of the Carnegie 
Institution, Washington, and Dr. Edgar B. Howard, of the Pennsylvanian 
University Museum, Philadelphia. It was on the dry prairie between 
Clovis and Portales in Curry County, New Mexico. Excavations were 
then in progress by Dr. Howard and a party of fellow-workers, and the 
results have lately been described by Dr. Howard himself in a valuable 
well-illustrated memoir on ‘ Evidence of Early Man in North America,’ 
published in the Museum Journal of the University of Philadelphia, vol. xxiv, 
Nos. 2-3, June 1935. I can appreciate and endorse his conclusions. 
The locality near Clovis is in the course of an old river which deposited 
gravel and then dried up into a series of shallow lakes which eventually 
became filled with silt and sand, probably windborne. There are sand- 
dunes around to-day. In the sandy silt of the old lakes there are well- 
preserved remains of the mammoth and extinct species of bison, besides 
freshwater shells which indicate a colder climate than that of New Mexico 
at present. ‘There are also stone implements, including Solutrean-like 
blades and less elaborately worked scrapers ; and in one spot the explorers 
found a mass of charcoal which contained burnt bones and chipped 
flints, evidently the remains of a contemporary hearth. Beneath the sandy 
silt several Folsom and Yuma points were obtained, and still further 
down, below the handiwork of man, there were remains of horses and 
camels. 
In Burnet cave, near Carlsbad in New Mexico, Dr. Howard also found 
a Folsom point and bone awls directly associated with remains of extinct 
bison and musk ox, and traces of old hearths ; and in Gypsum cave, near 
Las Vegas in Nevada, Dr. M. R. Harrington, of Los Angeles, discovered 
stone implements with remains of horses and camels and the small ground- 
sloth Nothrotherium, again with the charcoal of old hearths. Several other 
equally clear cases of the association of human implements with typically 
Pleistocene mammals in the south-western States of America might be 
cited, but these are enough to show the nature of the evidence which has 
