EARLY SOUTH AMERICANS 289 
carried his results to Europe, and obtained the sympathetic 
attention of the leading anthropologist in France — 
Paul Broca. 
Certain defects which mar all of Ameghino's scientific 
papers are apparent in his very first effort — a lack of 
precision and of detail, and particularly a decided 
tendency to overestimate the antiquity of all the 
geological strata of the Argentine Republic. The 
stratum on the Frias (fig. 94) which contained the 
OIPROTHOMO 
Fig. 94. — Sketch map of the sites of Ameghino's chief discoveries of ancient 
man. Inset is his section across the Frias, showing the strata and the 
position of the exploratory trench. 
human remains he regarded as of Pliocene date, and 
supposed the bones had become naturally entombed, not 
deliberately buried. The accepted opinion regarding 
these Pampean formations is that they are alluvial 
deposits belonging to the Pleistocene period — formations 
not unlike the loess of the Mississippi valley in manner 
and date of formation. There can be no question that 
the bones were buried by human agency. The greater 
part of a skeleton of an old woman of short stature 
(1-500 m.) and fragments of another individual were 
IQ 
