288 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
Dr Lund's discoveries gradually passed out of notice, 
and South America, as a possible home of ancient man, 
ceased to attract attention until the commencement of 
the present century, when there was a sudden revival 
of interest. That revival was entirely due to Dr 
Florentino Ameghino. He became interested in pre- 
historic research at an early age. ^ In 1873, being then 
in his nineteenth year, he made his first discovery of 
ancient man. At that time he was living in the town 
of Mercedes, some distance to the west of Buenos Aires 
(see fig. 94), on a flat sweep of the pampas across which 
there meandered a stream named the Frias. On one side 
of the stream, the banks of which rose over 6 feet above 
the level of the water, young Ameghino began to disinter 
the partially exposed carapace of an extinct Edentate near 
to a spot at which he had previously found a human skull. 
In the soil round and under the carapace he was surprised 
to note traces of charred wood. He then sank a trench 
on the side of the stream, in order that he might examine, 
in a systematic manner, those strata containing traces 
of man (fig. 94). 
He carried the trench down to a depth of about 5 feet 
below the bed of the stream, and about 10 or 11 feet 
below the surface of the bank. Altogether seven strata 
were exposed (see fig. 94) ; in the deepest layer, below the 
level of the bed of the stream, he found human remains. 
In the same stratum as the human bones he found parts 
of extinct animals, living animals, worked flints, fragments 
of charred bone, bones which were broken, perforated, and 
incised, baked earth, and a great attendance of charcoal. He 
believed he had discovered " the fossil man of Argentina." 
In 1875 ^^^ Argentine Scientific Society awarded him 
a diploma on account of his investigations, but in 1878, 
when he wished the Society to publish an account of 
his discovery, it refused to help him. Thereupon he 
' For an account of Ameghino's anthropological discoveries, see 
Robert Lehmann- Nitsche's " Nouvelles Recherches sur la Formation 
Pampeenne," Rivista del Mtisco dc la Plata, 1907, vol. xiv. pp. 143-488. 
Also Dr Ales Hrdlicka's work referred to on p. 286. 
