RECENT DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO EARLY MAN 
IN AMERICA 
By ALES HRDLICKA 
INTRODUCTION 
SINCE the publication by the writer of critical reviews of previous 
reports and evidence relating to early man in North and South 
America, 1 only a few newer cases of this nature have accumu 
lated, one or two of which at least demand serious attention. 
From South America we have had the report of additional mineral 
ized bones, by Dr. Juan B. Ambrosetti, for which, however, no 
definite claim of great antiquity has been made. 2 
There were also several newspaper and other reports, in the name 
of Carlos Ameghino and by other Argentinian observers, on the find 
ing of a nicely shaped -quartzite arrowpoint, of a type well known 
along the eastern coast of Argentina, in a femur of &quot; Toxodon 
chapalmalensis&quot; an animal of Tertiary provenience. The arrow- 
point, Ameghino concludes, &quot; was without doubt introduced into the 
femur by the Tertiary man, contemporary of the Toxodon.&quot; 3 
A much more noteworthy report on the finding of remains of 
early man in South America was that of the Yale Peruvian Expedi 
tion of 1911. This report, and that of the same expedition in 1912, 
resemble and contrast most instructively with the majority of the 
Argentina reports, and well deserve extended treatment. 
From North America we have two remarkable reports relating to 
man s antiquity: One on the so-called Rancho La Brea man from 
the asphalt pits of California, pits known as the richest deposits of 
skeletal remains of Quaternary animals; and the other on the &quot; Vero 
man &quot; from Florida, whose bones were found in association with those 
of mastodons, tapirs, and other species from early Quaternary. Both 
of these finds will also be dealt with in detail in the following pages. 
1 Skeletal Remains Suggesting or Attributed to Early Man in North America, Bull. 33, 
Bur Amer. Ethn., 1907 ; Early Man in South America, Bull. 52, Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1912. 
2 Compte-rendu XIV Congr. Intern. d Anthropologie et d ArcMologie pr^hist., vol. 
n, Geneve, 1913 ; Proc. XVIII Intern. Cong. Americanists, London, 1914, pp. 58. 
3 Physis, Communicaciones, No. 9, t. u, pp. 36-39 (no place, no date). Also La Nacion, 
Nov. 22 and Dec. 27. 1917; and Annales del Museo d Historia Natural de Buenos Aires, 
xxvi, pp. 417-450, 1915. 
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