HRDLlCKA] 
DISCOVERIES ATTRIBUTED TO EARLY MAN 
53 
The tibia, normally developed, measures at the middle of the shaft 
2.6 cm. in its antero-posterior and 1.9 cm. in its lateral diameter. 
The corresponding average measurements of Delaware tibiae were, 
respectively, 2.6 and 1.93 cm. 1 We could hardly ask for a closer 
resemblance. The index at middle is 73.1 in the Vero bone and 
averages 7^.5 in the left tibiae of the Delaware, less than 1.5 points 
difference, and much less than the individual variation in a single 
tribe. Twelve Florida female tibiae, from various parts of the State, 
give for the same proportions respectively 2.84, 1.97, and 69.4, di 
mensions also not far different, and a few individual bones match 
the Vero tibiae almost exactly. 
The Vero tibia presents also an interesting shape of the shaft. 
If we examine tibiae from Florida at large, we find that in the 
majority of cases the bones are distinguished by a decidedly convex 
inner surface, a characteristic also frequently met with among the 
tibiae of the Algonquian tribes farther north ; and it is precisely this 
form which is found in the tibiae of Vero Skeleton I. 
To summarize, the features of the femora and tibiae of the skeleton 
under consideration are, according to all indications, Indian, and 
of the type of Indians who peopled the Florida peninsula and other 
parts of the eastern coast up to historic times. Should the Vero 
skeleton be of geological antiquity, then we would have to accept the 
view that in size and type no change has taken place in the inhab 
itants of the region between the early Pleistocene (to which all the 
Vero finds are referred by Hay, who rather oversupports Sellards s 
views) and the Columbian period. This would mean new natural 
history of man, new anthropology. 
Part of a fibula present shows a weak development of the bone ; 
otherwise there is nothing exceptional. 
The part of left humerus shows that the bone was of the usual 
plano-convex Indian type, and quite platybrachic, as usual among the 
Indians. 
The patella is of ordinary form and, as is true of all the bones 
of the skeleton, of moderate size. Its dimensions compared with the 
average measurements of Eastern Algonquian female patellae are as 
follows : 
MeciM mf Patella 
Vero 
Skeleton I 
Mnnsee 
Females 
(Mean) - 
Height maximum 
Centimeters 
3.8 
Centimeters 
3 93 
Breadth, maximum . . 
4.0 
4.02 
Thickness maximum 
1 7 
1 73 
1 Bull. 62, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 68. 
