Skeletal remains suggesting or attributed to early man in North America / by Aleš Hrdlička.

  • Hrdlička, Aleš, 1869-1943.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Skeletal remains suggesting or attributed to early man in North America / by Aleš Hrdlička. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    not been studied until the last year. The whole investigation has been carried on without preconceived opinions in regard to either the presence in or the absence from northern America of early man and is in the main a simple anatomical comparison. III.—THE NEW ORLEANS SKELETON In a number of the older writings touching on the subject of man’s antiquity in North America, particularly in Nott and Gliddon,® are found references to the discovery of an apparently ancient skeleton at New Orleans, Louisiana. The original report on this find, usually credited to D. B. Dowler,& is by Prof. D. Drake,0 and reads as follows: In 1844 I visited two gas tanks, each GO feet in diameter and 1G feet deep, recently sunk in the back part of the city [i. e., New Orleans], and received from the intelligent superintendent, Doctor Rogers, an account of what was met with in excavating them. At first they encountered soil and soft river mud, then harder laminated blue alluvion, then deep black mold resting on wet bluish quicksand. . . . The roots and the basis or stumps of no fewer than four successive growths of trees, apparently cypress, were found standing at different elevations. The first had a diameter of 2 feet 6 inches, the second of 6 feet, the third of 4 feet, and the fourth of 12 feet, at a short distance up, with a base of 28 feet for the roots. It is embedded in a soft deep-black mold. When cut with the spade much of this wood resembled cheese in tex¬ ture, but hardened on drying. ... At the depth of 7 and 1G feet burnt wood was met with. No shells or bones of land animals or fish were observed, but in a tank previously excavated, at the depth of 1G feet the skeleton of a man was found. The cranium lay between the roots of a tree and was in a tolerable state of preservation, but most of the other bones crumbled on pressure. A small os ilium, which I saw, indicated the female sex. A low and narrow fore¬ head, moderate facial angle, and prominent widely separated cheek bones seemed to prove the skull of the same race with our present Indians. No charcoal, ashes, or ornaments, of any kind were found around it. On the basis of the foregoing rather defective data and calcula¬ tions as to the probable age of the stumps, Doctor Dowler con¬ cluded (page IT) that the “human race existed in the delta more than fifty-seven thousand years ago.” On a little reflection this estimate shows so many weak points that it can not be accepted for anything more than an individual opinion. The notes concern¬ ing the skull, so far as they go, indicate that the specimen resembled in the main the skull of an ordinary Indian, but this conclusion has little value. It is nowhere stated what became of the skeleton. Drake’s remark that “ most of the other bones crumbled on pressure ” makes it probable that few, if any, parts of it have been preserved, and also clearly indicates that the bones were in no degree fossilized. a Types of Mankind, chap, xi, numerous editions, Philadelphia. b Tableaux of New. Orleans, 8-9, New Orleans, no date (published in the early fifties). c A Systematic Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America, etc., 76-77, Cincinnati, 1850.