HKDLICKA] DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO EARLY MAN H 
with whose aid we cut through the wall and found it was about 3 feet thick 
and 9 feet in height, carefully faced on both sides and filled in with rubble. 
As this type of stonework is not uncommon in the foundations of some of the 
older buildings in the western part of the city of Cuzco, and as it is usually 
called by the inhabitants Incaic, I was at once struck by the idea that this 
kind of wall must be very much older than we should be led to suppose by 
our present ideas of Inca civilization. Such a thesis would be necessary to 
account for a wall completely covered over to a depth of 6 or 8 feet by a 
compact gravel bank, a bank later eroded to a depth of 10 feet. Further 
investigation in this part of the gulch revealed numbers of potsherds and bones. 
A few days later I followed the Ayaliuaycco quelrada up to its head, using 
a road on its east side. In various places I was struck by .evidences of ancient 
civilization. Ash heaps, recent and ancient, a stone-paved area which may 
have been a threshing floor or market place, and numbers of bones and 
potsherds offered a most interesting field for speculation and study. Ayahuaycco 
means &quot;the cadaver quebrada &quot; or &quot;dead man s gulch,&quot; or &quot;the valley of 
dead bodies.&quot; There is a tradition that this valley was once used as a burial 
place for plague victims in Cu/co. possibly not more than three generations 
ago. Such a story appears to be well borne out by the great number of 
human bones that occur in the talus slopes. I was most anxious to see 
whether anything could be found definitely in situ, where the stratification 
had not been disturbed. After proceeding up the valley for more than half 
a mile it narrowed and the east side, along which I was walking, became very 
precipitous. The road had apparently recently been widened and this made 
the bank at this place practically perpendicular. About 5 feet above the road 
I saw what at first looked like one of the small rocks which are freely 
interspersed throughout the compact gravel of this region. Something about 
it led me to examine it more closely, and I then recognized that it was 
apparently the end of a human bone, probably a femur. 
I was at once so impressed by the possibilities, in case it should turn out to 
be true that this was a human bone and had been buried centuries ago under 
seventy-five or a hundred feet of gravel, that I refrained from disturbing the bone 
until I could get the geologist and the naturalist of the expedition to witness its 
excavation. Prof. Isaiah Bowman, who had already made studies in the Central 
Andes, and was the geologist-geographer of the expedition, was at this time 
only a few days away making a preliminary study of the Anta Basin. On his 
return to Cuzco Professor Bowman was requested to make a physiographic 
study of the gulch in which the human remains had been found. . . . 
On the afternoon of July 11 Professor Bowman and I excavated the femur 
and found behind it fragments of a number of other bones. These w T e took out 
as carefully as possible. They were excessively fragile. The femur was 
unable to support 4 inches of its own weight, and after that much had been 
excavated the exposed end fell off. The gravel was somewhat (lamp but could 
hardly be called moist. The bones were dry and powdery. It is difficult to 
describe their color. Perhaps &quot;ashy gray&quot; is as near as anything. The end 
of the femur first seen was so like the pebbles as to be distinguished from them 
only with the greatest difficulty. 
******* 
The bones were carried to our hotel, where they were again photographed, 
soaked in melted vaseline, and then packed in cotton batting. On my return 
to the States in December the bones were submitted to Dr. George P. Eaton, 
curator of osteology in the Peabody Museum, for examination. 
