ANTHROPOLOGY: N. C. NELSON 
193 
by Dr. Spinden in the Maya area, by the writer and others in the Cali- 
I fornia shelhnounds and by a number of men from different institutions — 
including the American Museum — in the Trenton gravels, as well as in 
several of the rockshelters of New Jersey and finally by the writer again 
in the Southwest. All these attempts are of very limited significance, 
however, each embracing but an infinitely small segment of the entire 
cultural curve. Without elaborating on the subject any further it 
must be tolerably clear from the foregoing how urgent is the need for 
problem work in American archaeology. 
Being convinced of this necessity, the American Museum last summer 
made a preliminary investigation of some of the Kentucky caverns. 
Caves and rockshelters, in view of the wonderful returns they have 
yielded in Europe, are difficult to resist even though they have been 
tried over and over again in America with practically negative results. 
The general locality was deliberately chosen as being well south of the 
limits of glaciation, and in fact in some respects quite comparable to the 
Lower Pyrenees. The quest was not precisely to find evidence of Pale- 
olithic man; it was merely to ascertain whether in the middle Missis- 
sippi region there was any trace of a relatively primitive stage of de- 
velopment that might have given rise to the Moundbuilder culture 
as we know it at its best. In this the writer, who conducted the in- 
vestigation, is at least morally certain that he succeeded. 
In the spring of the year, after consulting with Professor Arthur M. 
Miller of the Geological Department of the State University at Lexington, 
two series of caves and shelters were inspected : one along the Kentucky 
River, south of Lexington, and the other along the Green River in the 
vicinity of Mammoth Cave. Later in the season some trial excavations 
were carried out in several of the Green River sites and positive results 
were obtained in two places, viz., in Mammoth Cave and in a small 
unnamed rockshelter about six miles lower down the river. 
The discovery in Mammoth Cave consisted of a stratified relic-bearing 
deposit ranging from a few inches to about 4 feet in depth and forming 
part of the floor debris of the large entrance vestibule. In some places 
the refuse reached the surface of the cave floor while in others it was 
buried under as much as 4 feet of sterile cave earth and rock laid down 
unquestionably by modern man. The body of the refuse was composed 
largely of ashes, being presumably the slow accumulation of aboriginal 
hearth fires. In this matrix was found a considerable quantity of crushed 
animal bones among which have been distinguished the deer, beaver, 
opossum (?), turtle, bat and several birds; as well as numerous shells 
representing two or three species of fresh-water bivalves, — all of it 
