Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/709

 64O AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

Indian burial pit where young and old were jammed into a con- glomerate mass and covered with earth, gravel, and stones.

The presence of a wampum bead imbedded with the earth, bones, and pebbles in the skull is a strong argument against an- tiquity. It is not claimed that this shell bead is fossilized, and it would seem that it resembles in every way — size, shape, manner of boring, and degree of elaboration — the concavo-convex beads made from clam shells and worn by members of nearly every Indian family in California. That a Tertiary people should have made and worn the identical form seems highly improbable.

The small snail shell, the fragile Helix mortnonum, found also in the skull, is much more at home in a modern burial place than in the torrent-swept bed of a Tertiary river. The species is recent, and I am not aware that it has been found in Tertiary formations.

It thus appears that the so-called Calaveras skull exhibits nothing in its character, condition, or associated phenomena in- compatible with the theory of recent origin, and very much that may be justly construed as favoring that theory.

The Skull at Cambridge. — On returning to the East I took the first opportunity of visiting Cambridge for the purpose of examining the Calaveras skull. Professor Putnam very kindly removed the specimen from its resting place and permitted me to examine it at leisure and to handle the loose materials — the lime- cemented earth, the bits of bone, and the shell bead — detached by Professor Wyman. He preferred, however, that I should not attempt to describe the relics, as he had in view the publication of a paper giving his views and an exhaustive chemical and com- parative study of the skull. This idea I hope to see him carry out at an early day, as it is manifestly the duty of the custodian of so important a relic to place it freely and fully before the world. If there is anything to add to what Whitney and Wyman have already said, the present generation of anthropologists should have the benefit of it. It is now thirty-three years since the specimen was carried to Cambridge.

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