EARLY SOUTH AMERICANS 287 
" In view of the facts to which I have here 
referred, there can then remain no doubt as to the 
existence of man on this continent in an epoch 
anterior to that in which the last races of the gigantic 
animals whose remains abound in the caves of this 
country became extinct, or, in other terms, as to 
his existence here anterior to the historic period. 
" As to the ethnographic peculiarities of the skulls 
from this deposit, I had occasion to confirm my 
former conclusions, namely, that they offer all the 
characteristic features of the American race ; and 
I have firmly convinced myself that the extra- 
ordinary depression of the forehead which is 
observed in some of the individuals is not artificial." 
It must be kept in mind that Dr Lund's investigations 
were carried out long before methods of precision and 
of dating had been applied to cave exploration in Europe. 
As our knowledge of the early cultures of South America 
increases, the objects of human workmanship which were 
collected by Dr Lund during his investigations of the 
deeper strata of the caves may give a clue to the 
antiquity of the human remains. We do not know when 
the strange animals, which apparently lived at the same 
time as the Brazilian cavemen, became extinct, but if we 
apply to South America the rules which guide the 
palaeontologist elsewhere, we must regard them as being 
at least as old as the latter part of the Pleistocene 
period. 
As to the kind of man discovered by Dr Lund in the 
Lagoa Santa caves, there is no difference of opinion. 
Those who have examined his collections in the University 
Museum, Copenhagen, and in the Natural History 
Museum, South Kensington, London, agree that, in 
racial features, those ancient Brazilians do not differ 
from tribes still living in South America. The skulls 
are not unlike those of the low-browed " Nebraska 
loess men." We have in Dr Lund's discoveries further 
evidence of the persistency of the American-Indian type. 
