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CHAPTER XV

ANCIENT TYPES OF AMERICA

AVING traced the various types of man that have appeared in the Old World, from the Neolithic woman of Essex to the very ancient fossil man of Java, I propose to turn to the New World and survey briefly the most ancient kinds of man which have been discovered there. So far as concerns North America the task is an easy one, for only the other day the American Bureau of Ethnology issued a very clear account, written by Dr. Ales Hrdliçka, of the remains of ancient Iman which have been found there. There is no final agreement amongst American geologists, any more than amongst their European colleagues, as to the exact number of temperate intervals which broke up the long glacial epoch into periods; in America it is usual to recognize five such intervals, the present temperate period being the sixth. We have just seen that in the Old World remains of man have been found from about the beginning of the first Interglacial Period-assigning, in our calculations, the first of the cold periods to the end of the Pliocene Period. No remains of the body of man have yet been found in North America

in circumstances which permit us to assume that they belong to an earlier point than a late date in the present temperate period. Mankind appears to have attained its modern form long before America was first inhabited. Of the fourteen discoveries recorded by Dr. Hrdliçka, probably the "Nebraska loess men" have the greatest claim to antiquity. Parts of about twelve human skeletons were found. The first find at Nebraska was made in 1894; but it was not until Mr. G. F. Gilder undertook a systematic excavation and found human bones at a depth of 7 feet in an apparently undisturbed and naturally formed stratum that attention was drawn to the importance of the Nebraska find. The scene of the discovery was Long's Hill, a ridge-like elevation some six hundred yards in extent, composed of a fine loam mixed with lime, a formation made in late Pleistocene times by wind and rain. On the top of the hill was an old burial mound in which the upper human remains were found; the deeper remains were unearthed beneath the mound in loess which had been apparently deposited naturally over the remains. In Dr. Hrdliçka's opinion the remains were those of a people having the same features as are still to be found amongst Indian tribes. As regards time it is possible that the "Nebraska loess man" may have been a contemporary of the Tilbury man in England, but his date is probably much later.

Another find may be mentioned. In 1902 Mr. M. Cannon, a farmer near Lansing, Kansas, dug a tunnel into a terrace at the base of the Missouri River bluffs. He was surprised to find, at a depth of 20 feet below the surface, the skeleton. of a man, and a part of the lower jaw of an infant. The terrace, however, is apparently of comparatively recent formation, having been probably laid down by the stream issuing from the side valley. The age is probably not greater than that assigned to the Nebraska remains. Perhaps the most famous of the remains of prehistoric man found in America is the Calaveras skull. This was discovered by a gold miner, near Altaville, California, in 1866. The bed of gravel in which this skull is said to have been found lies 130 feet beneath the surface, and in the opinion of those fit to judge, was formed at a period of the earth's history which antedates the appearance of the fossil man of Java by a long interval of time. The Calaveras skull is of the modern human type, characterized by the very prominent cheek bones usually found in the Mongolian races. The discovery of a modern aeroplane in a church crypt which had been bricked up since the days of Queen Elizabeth would form a parallel instance to finding a modern human skull in a Miocene formation. To those who have studied the evolution of man, the one discovery is as credible as the other. Dr. Hrdlicka found the same type of skull

in a similar state of fossilization in the limestone caves of Calaveras county. In some manner one of these had got mixed with the deep gold-bearing bed of gravel.

Dr. Hrdlicka formed the opinion that the skeleton discovered at Lansing “is practically identical with the typical male skeleton of a large majority of the present Indians of the Middle and Eastern States." As regards the man of the “Arkansas loess," he also is of the Indian type, but there are certain peculiar features, namely, a low forehead which slopes backwards to a high crown. The top, or crown of the head, reaches its maximum elevation towards the posterior part of the head.

It is a remarkable fact that the oldest type of man yet discovered in South America is the same as the man of the Arkansas loess. The discovery was made when excavations were being carried out to form the docks at Buenos Aires, on the south bank of the La Plata. When the workmen had reached a depth of 35 feet below the present bed of the river and over 100 feet below the level of the neighbouring plain, they found part of a skull, including the forehead and part of the crown. In Professor Schwalbe's opinion, with which the writer is in complete agreement, the skull is, both as regards its dimensions and its character, that of a modern type of man-the type just mentioned in the Arkansas loess. In the opinion of that enthusiastic pioneer of Palæon

tology in South America, Professor Ameghino, the skull thus found is that of an ancestral form of

Fig. 29. A tracing of the profile of the La Tigra cranium (outline) compared with the profile of the skull of the Arkansas loess man (shaded). (One-third natural size.)

man to which he gave the name Diprothomo platensis. The same authority assigns an extra