THE LOESS AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 
B. SHIMEK. 
Reports on the antiquity of man in Europe and on both the 
American continents, contain frequent references to loess, and 
repeated efforts have been made to establish the antiquity of 
man on the basis of the relation of human remains and artifacts 
to supposed loess. Such efforts have been uniformly unsuccess- 
ful, and the weakness of these cases has resulted chiefly from 
the following causes : 
1. — In many cases, the human remains and artifacts were re- 
moved by laborers or unskilled amateurs, and there are doubts 
as to the exact nature of the material from which they were 
obtained. 
2. — In other cases, the collectors were competent to judge 
of the bones, teeth, and artifacts, but not of the deposits in 
which they were found. Hence definite references to specific 
horizons in such cases have been unreliable. 
3. — Where students of the Pleistocene have been called in to 
assist in the determination of the horizon, the results have often 
proved unsatisfactory because of the difference of opinion 
among such students, and because the rapid progress in the 
investigation of the Pleistocene has necessitated frequent 
changes in prevailing opinions. 
4. — Perhaps largely because of these difficulties, there has 
been much superficial, unscientific work done in this connec- 
tion, and unreliable evidence has been greedily taken up, espe- 
cially when it supported some pet view or theory. 
The antiquity .of man has been established in Europe much 
more definitelv than in America, though even there, there has 
been much difference of opinion as to the age of various re- 
mains, the difference arising from the uncertainty as to the age 
of the horizon in which they were found. 
In the European reports, frequent references are made to 
human remains and artifacts found in loess, but the use of 
the term has been broad in many cases, and the determination 
of the character of the materials containing the remains so un- 
certain in other cases, that it is safe to say that not a single 
