MAN AND MASTODON 
Remains of Animals Dug Up 
in Indian Territory. 
PROF, HOLMES MAKES DISCOVERY 
“A Great Soun Dish in Which All Creatures, 
Ancient and Modern, Were Gathered To- 
gether’—Remains of Extinct Horses and 
\ Extinct Buffatoes Also Found—Man Not 
Contemporary with the Mastodon—Theory 
to Account for the Finding of the Bones. 
e 
“Tt was like a great ‘soup dish\ in 
which all kinds of ereatures, ancient and 
modern, ‘were gathered together.’’. 
This -pwas the picturesque phrase used by 
Prof. W: H. Holmes, of the United States 
National Museum, who has just returned 
from Indian ‘Territory, where he made 
what may fairly be described as one of 
‘the most notable discoveries in the his- 
. tory of American archaeological research. 
Reliable reports having been received to 
the effect that relics of human art had 
been found associated with bones of the 
mastodoh and mammoth in the neighbor- 
hood of Afton, I, T., it was decided to in- 
vestigate the matter thoroughly, and 
Prof; Holmes left Washington about a | 
month ago with that object in view. The 
locality in question was an ancient sul- 
‘phur spring, a “‘medicine’” ‘spring of the 
Indian tribes, and is used to this day as a 
source of water supply. Having reached 
the spot, the professor dug out the de- 
posits and secured a great quantity of 
teeth and bones of various extinct ani~ 
mals, including the mammoth and mac- | 
todon, which were mixed up in the most 
extraordinary manner with large num- 
bers of the most exquisite flint knives 
and Spear heads ever seen. There were 
nearly 1,000 of these implements. ay 
Prof. Holmes has brought back with 
him several large boxes full of the ani- 
mal remains, which include teeth of an 
extinct species of ox (perhaps) a musk 0x). 
an extinct species of horse, and a large 
variety of bones of modern animals, such 
ag the ordinary buffalo, the deer, the elk, 
and the wolf. The extinct Horse and ox 
were ‘evidently contemporary with . the 
mammoth and mastodon and roamed the 
plains. region at the same period with 
those giant pachyderms. ; | 
“Now, realize, if you please, that all 
these’ creatures, ancient and modern, or, 
rather, their remains, were dug out of a 
single hole in a muck bed on the plains 
of Afton,’ said Prof. Holmes yesterday. 
“All of the material collected, including 
the articles of human manufacture, were 
obtained from an excavation not above a 
yard and a half cube. The implements 
‘are far Supérior ii quality to anything’ 
of the kind that we have in the Nationa] 
'Museum, while the collection as a whole 
_ Probably surpasses in interest any single 
‘find hitherto made, Wy 
is A Deposit of Bones, \ 
“The place I was called upon to visit 
was a most unpromising Swamp—a quak- 
ing jbog, which shook beneath the feet 
as one stepped upon it, Tn the midst of 
this, bog was an ancient spring, which, as 
indicated by our investigations, had been | 
used for ages as a drinking place by ani- 
mals of all kinds. Not long ago an ef-! 
‘fort was made to improve the quality of 
the water supply, necessarily valuable in 
that region, by Sinking a sort of wooden 
_ box five feet or so square into the marsh 
. Where the water bubbles up. The mud 
was cleared out of the water-hole ag far 
as possible, and boards were driven down 
into the moist soil. Incidentally a good 
many teeth of mastodons and mammoths 
Were found, together with flaked flint im. 
plements, and these excited the attention 
of Dr. R, H. Harper, of Afton, 4 gentle. 
Man of scientific inclinations, who notified 
the National Museum, \ 
“The first thing we did was to clear | 
out the spring box, which was partly 
filled with mud, placing boards over the 
Surface to stand upon while we worked. | 
At a depth of four or five feet the men 
began to throw out mastodon teeth and 
some flint implements; but a little deep- 
jer’ the deposits’ became much richer. It 
appeared that the sharpened lower ends 
of the boards used for making the box 
“had been driven into accumulations of 
_ bones of buffalo, elk, deer, wolves, and 
horses (all modern animals), associated 
with large numbers of beautiful flint 
tools, while all about and intermingled 
with these modern things were the bones 
of ancient forms of mammals. 
“The water came in as fast as two men 
could dip it out, but gradually we made 
Our way through the surface muck into 
the stratum of loose gravel. Buried in 
the gravel at still greater depths we 
found plentiful remains of the mastodon, 
the mammoth, the extinet horse, and bis- 
on. After a bit the sprite-box caved ines 
and then we had to begin digging ‘out- | 
side of it, about twelve feet from. the | 
Spring. This was easier to manage, the) 
earth being more solid at a’ little dis.” 
tance from the spring basin. Finally, hay- | 
ing removed the box, we cleared the hole 
entirely out and carried the pit down sev- 
eral: feet more. The depth of the excava- 
tion when’ we finished was perhaps nine | 
feet. i 
“The flint implements were nearly all 
contained in .a single pocket, none of | 
them being deeper down than six or seven 
feet, and the bones of modern animals 
were confined to anvroximately the same | 
area. As for the teeth of the mastodons 
and mammoths, they diminished in num- 
bers as the digging was carried farther 
away from the spring. Practically all of 
the implements were in the spring itself, 
I had pits dug at distances of. twenty feet 
from the spring on the north, east, and 
west sides, but they yielded very little 
One flint tool was found in the muck, and. 
beneath that an occasional tooth of mam- 
Mout or mastodon. “ BAe 3 
