ANTIQUITY OF MAN ON THE WESTERN CONTINENT.
Antiquity of the Mounds — No Tradition of the Mound-builders —
Vegetation Covering the Mounds — Age of Mound Crania — Probable
Date of the Abandonment of the Mounds — Ancient Shell-heaps —
Man’s Influence on Nature — Supposed Testimony of Geology —
Agassiz on the Floridian Jaw-bone — Remains on Santos River —
The Natchez Bone — Remains on Petit Anse Island — Brazilian
Bone caves — Dr. Koch’s Pretended Discoveries — Ancient Hearths
— Age of the Mississippi Delta — Dr. Dowler’s Discovery at New
Orleans — Dr. Abbott’s Discoveries in New Jersey — Discoveries
in California — Inter-Glacial Relics in Ohio — Crania from
Mounds in the North-west — No Evidences as yet Discovered
Proving Man’s Great Antiquity in America.
At the opening of the preceding chapter we made some allusions to
the supposed antiquity of the Red Indian, a subject of growing
archæological significance, though as yet it affords us rather
unsatisfactory evidence, scientifically considered, relative to
the problem of man’s antiquity on this continent. Quite different,
however, is the estimate which we place on data left us by the people
of the mounds. The question of the antiquity of the Mound-builders
is one which cannot be accurately determined; no chronometric scale
can be applied to the uncertain record which they have left behind
them. Their history is a sealed book, and the approximate date of
their first occupancy of the Mississippi Basin is as uncertain as
the period of man’s origin. However, certain data present themselves
for our consideration which lead us to conclude that a few thousand
years, three or four perhaps, and possibly even less time, is all
that is required in which to account for their growth into a nation
and the moderate advancement which they made toward civilization. As
to when the Mound-builders left this country, is another question,
and can be approximated more closely. It is a well-known fact that
no tradition was ever found among the Indians as to the origin or the
purpose for which the mounds were constructed. They described them as
having been found by their ancestors in the same condition in which
we now see them, and clothed, if not with the same, at least with a
growth of vegetation similar to that which covers them to-day. It is
true the Iroquois, who are supposed to have reached the lake regions
and the Ohio Valley some time previous to the Algonquins, had certain
vague traditions of a people whom they called the “Allighewi;” but
there seems to be nothing in those indefinite allusions which would
associate that unknown people with the mounds. Still, Indian tradition
is nearly valueless in determining this question, since any fact,
however grave, was soon forgotten by a people so savage and unsettled.
The tribes of the lake region, says Dr. Lapham in his _Antiquities_,
so soon forgot the visit of the Jesuit Fathers that their descendants
a few generations later had no tradition of the event. The same is
true of the Indians of the Mississippi Valley with reference to De
Soto’s expedition, “which must,” remarks Dr. Foster, “have impressed
their ancestors with dread at the sight of horses ridden by men, and
the sound of fire-arms, which they must have likened to thunder. Sir
John Lubbock states that the New Zealanders at the time of Captain
Cook’s visit had forgotten altogether Tasman’s visit, made less than
one hundred and thirty years before.”[86] Another argument for the
construction of the mounds at a remote period, and which is certainly
of little more value than Indian tradition, is that which supposes
the Mound-builders to have erected works on the lowest of the river
terraces existing at the time of their occupancy of the country.
Much stress has been laid on the fact that no works have been found
on the lowest-formed of the river terraces which mark the subsidence
of the western rivers. “And as there is no good reason,” remarks Mr.
Baldwin, “why their builders should have avoided erecting them on
that terrace while they raised them promiscuously on all the others,
it follows, not unreasonably, that this terrace has been formed since
the works were erected.”[87] To any one familiar with the great rise
and fall which takes place annually in the water-level of the Ohio
and Mississippi and all of their tributaries, the fallacy of such
an argument is at once apparent. We must at least allow that the
Mound-builders learned by experience, just as animals do, even if we
could deny them a very high order of intelligence. Little time could
have elapsed after their advent to these valleys before they observed
the impracticability of erecting mounds or enclosures on most of the
alluvial bottoms bordering these streams. The raging torrents which
sometimes sweep through the valleys of the central basin, uprooting
the largest trees, carrying away natural embankments, forming immense
deposits of new alluvium, submerging miles of adjacent country, and
in many ways changing its physical conformation, would in a few years
obliterate any traces of earthworks built within their reach.[88] Far
more certain data, however, is furnished in the arborescent vegetation
which covers many of the works, with which to measure part of the
period during which they have remained unoccupied, though we are left
in uncertainty as to the remoteness of their abandonment. The annular
rings of a tree present us indisputable evidence as to its age.[89] It
is evident that the forests which cover these remains have grown up
since they were vacated, as no difference exists between them and the
surrounding vegetation—no break exists in the density of the forests
in the immediate vicinity of the works. The oldest of the trees found
upon the works present eight hundred annual rings, indicating as many
years of growth.[90] This cannot, however, be set down as the limit of
the period of their abandonment, since, as it seems that this country
was open and mostly unwooded in the sections thickly settled by the
Mound-builders, a considerable time would be requisite for the slow
encroachments of a forest, even when the trees which now stand upon
the mounds may have been preceded by trees of other species or by
two or three generations of their own.[91] The age of the trees on
the mound-works in the Ohio Valley or farther north, rarely exceeds
five hundred or six hundred years, and such cases as that cited by Sir
Charles Lyell are the exceptions. Farther south, in the Mississippi
Valley and near the Gulf, they are still younger than those at the
north.[92] So noticeable is this that we are led to think the Gulf
coast may have been occupied by the Mound-builders for a couple of
centuries after they were driven by their enemies from the country
north of the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers. The condition of
skeletons found in the mounds indicate an antiquity which they furnish
us no means of measuring. It is not to be presumed that all human
remains discovered in excavating the works were interred immediately
previous to the abandonment of the country. Some of them may belong
to the middle or beginning of the period of their residence in the
territory occupied by the United States. Human remains taken from the
mounds, perhaps furnish us better evidence of the long residence of the
Mound-builders in this country than any other data in our possession.
It suffices to say that few Mound-builder crania have been recovered in
a condition to be of any service to science; although of late years,
several valuable collections have been made. The preservation of the
skeletons depends greatly on the composition of the soil in which they
are found. The Loess has afforded well-preserved remains, however,
with the gelatinous matter leached out. The crania of the sandy loam
of river bottoms, on the other hand, are in all cases so far decayed
upon discovery that the greatest precautions fail to prevent them from
crumbling to dust when exposed to the light and air. Mastodon bones,
on the contrary, recovered from peat swamps, and much older than any
of the remains of the Mound-builders, are found to have retained so
much of their gelatinous matter as to furnish a nourishing soup.[93]
To these evidences may be added the testimony derived from the ancient
ruins which points to long-continued occupation and to a considerable
lapse of time since their abandonment.
How long the Mound-builders occupied the country north of the Gulf of
Mexico it is impossible in the present state of science to determine.
Some authors conjecture that they were here two thousand years; that
we think would be time enough, though after all it is but conjecture.
It seems to us, however, that the time of the abandonment of their
works may be more closely approximated. A thousand or two years may
have elapsed since they vacated the Ohio Valley, and a period embracing
seven or eight centuries may have passed since they retired from the
Gulf coast. As an evidence of a large population having existed in this
country at a former period, we have immense shell-heaps artificially
collected, extending along the Atlantic coast from Nova Scotia to
Florida, on the Gulf coast and up the river valleys through nearly
all of the Southern States. It is difficult to assign the formation
of these vast remains to any definite period or to any particular
people. Though of the same character as the _Kjökken-Möddings_
(Kitchen-Middens) of the Danish, they furnish no indications of so
great an antiquity. This has been shown by Dr. Jeffries Wyman in his
researches in Maine and Massachusetts.[94] Sir Charles Lyell made an
examination of a shell-bank on St. Simon’s Island, near the mouth of
the Allamaha River, Georgia, so extensive that it covers ten acres to
a depth varying from five to ten feet.[95] Dr. Brinton has described
immense accumulations in Florida. On Amelia Island, shells exist to
the depth of three feet over an area 150 yards wide and a quarter of a
mile long. Notable instances of a similar kind are Turtle Mound near
Smyrna—a mass of oyster shells thirty feet thick—and a shell-bank
on Crystal River four miles from its mouth, reaching a height of
forty feet.[96] Dr. Wyman carefully examined many of the fresh-water
shell-heaps of Florida and obtained pretty satisfactory results.[97]
Near the Silver spring upon a shell-heap covering nearly twenty acres,
stand several live-oaks of immense size, the largest of which measured
between twenty-six and twenty-seven feet in circumference. Excavations
under this monster, taken together with its position on the side of
the shell-bank, proved it to be of more recent origin than the latter.
Prof. Wyman, by allowing twelve rings to the inch and granting it a
semi-diameter of fifty inches, estimated that it was not less than
six hundred years old. Of course the shell-bank may have existed a
long time before any vegetation appeared upon it. The crania of
the shell-banks of Florida differ from those of the Mound-builders
in greater thickness as well as greater mean capacity.[98] In his
_Fresh-water Shell-Mounds of the St. John’s River_, and in his memoir
on _Human Remains in the Shell-heaps of the St. John’s River_ (_Seventh
Annual Report of Peabody Museum_, pp. 26 _et seq._), Dr. Wyman reports
having discovered the startling fact that cannibalism prevailed among
the barbarous people of the shell-banks. In the Peabody Museum a
collection of human bones taken from the shell-banks by Dr. Wyman are
arranged to illustrate this sad discovery. It is possible that this
people had some relationship to the Caribs. Prof. Forshey has described
in brief the vast extent and proportions of the marine shell-banks of
the Gulf coast, and the shores of the bayous, lakes and lagoons where
Guathodon shells are found. Those of Louisiana, especially near New
Orleans, are remarkable, but have yielded no remains, except broken
pottery, flint flakes and stone hatchets. A shell-bank at Grand
Lake, on the Teche, however, upon which great live-oaks are growing,
situated fifteen miles inland, from which the sea has receded since
its formation, “yielded unique specimens of axes of hæmatitic iron-ore
and glazed pottery.”[99] Probably the most remote shell-bank from
the sea containing marine shells, occurs on the Alabama River, fifty
miles inland.[100] Fresh-water shell-banks, other than those examined
in Florida, furnish evidences of slow accumulation and indicate
a comparatively remote antiquity for their origin. On Stalling’s
Island, in the Savannah River, two hundred miles above its mouth, is
a shell-bank three hundred feet in length by one hundred and twenty
feet in width, with an average depth of over fifteen feet.[101] In
the American Bottom and on many of the tributaries of the Mississippi,
shell-banks occur, composed of varieties of the Unios and Anodons. A
remarkable example of such accumulation is the well-known shell-bank a
mile and a half south of New Harmony, Indiana, and situated on a high
hill 170 feet above the level of an arm of the Wabash River. The bank
covers an area of a quarter of an acre, and has attracted the attention
of eminent scientists like Leasure, Say, Lyell and others, but nothing
of value was developed that would refer the construction of this and
similar banks to any people more ancient than the Mound-builders.[102]
On the Pacific coast, great numbers of shell-banks exist, but contain
nothing different from those in other parts of the country. (See
Researches in the Kjökken Möddings of the Coast of Oregon and of the
Santa Barbara Islands and Adjacent Mainland, by Paul Schumacher.
_Bulletin of U. S. Geol. and Geog. Survey_, vol. iii, No. 1.) There can
be little doubt but these strange and vast accumulations indicating the
presence of an extinct population, had a remote beginning, and have
been added to from time to time by different peoples, removed from each
other both by the diversities of race and the lapse of time.
A trifle more than a decade ago the treatment of the subject of this
chapter would have called for a discussion of the antiquity of the
magnificent architectural remains of Southern Mexico, and of the still
older ruins of the Maya civilization in Yucatan, and the branches of
that people in Central America; but the indefatigable labor which has
been bestowed by several eminent antiquarians upon the ancient history
of the civilized nations of the New World previous to its discovery by
Europeans, has transferred this part of the subject to another field;
has elevated it from the uncertain position it occupied in archæology
to a place in the realm of history. It is true that it is difficult
to draw the line between tradition and history, and especially so in
this case; but as tradition does not conflict with archæology in its
bearing on the ancient civilization of Tropical America, it is better
than nothing; certainly archæology thus far has amounted to little
more than nothing in revealing the approximate period of the origin of
these remains. While it has done much towards verifying tradition and
assisted largely in its interpretation, it has not been adequate to the
task of solving the age of these remains. Tradition, on the contrary,
and we might almost say history, carries us back three thousand years,
if not farther, as the period when man—whether the first here or
not—appeared upon the Western Continent. The discussion of this part of
our subject will be given in a future chapter. Too much doubt exists
with reference to the stupendous remains of Peru, especially in the
neighborhood of Lake Titicaca, Tiahuanaco, Old Huanaco, and Grau-Chimu,
as to whether they antedated the arrival of the Incas by a great lapse
of time, to admit of a serious discussion here. Nothing of a scientific
character is available as yet upon which even to base conjecture.
Rivero and Tschudi, it is true, have treated the subject, and their
work has been often quoted, but after all it amounts to but little
more than a description of the remains, which serves the good end of
exciting interest in the subject. The antiquities and legendary history
of the Peruvians have so recently been treated with such ability by Mr.
E. G. Squier, that the South American civilization needs no attention
in this connection.
In considering the question as to how long man has inhabited this
continent, his influence upon nature cannot be overlooked. In the
animal kingdom, certain animals were domesticated by the aborigines
from so remote a period that scarcely any of their species, as in the
case of the lama of Peru, were to be found in a state of unrestrained
freedom at the advent of the Spaniards. In the vegetable kingdom more
abundant testimony of the same nature is presented. A plant must be
subjected to the transforming influences of cultivation for a long
time before it becomes so changed as no longer to be identified with
the wild species, and infinitely longer before it becomes entirely
dependent upon cultivation for propagation. Yet we find that both
of these facts have been accomplished with reference to the maize,
tobacco, cotton, quinoa and mandico plants; and the only species
of palm cultivated by the South American Indians, that known as the
_Gulielma speciosa_, has lost through that culture its original
nut-like seed, and is dependent upon the hands of its cultivators
for its life.[103] Alluding to the above-named plants, Dr. Brinton
remarks: “Several are sure to perish unless fostered by human care.
What numberless ages does this suggest? How many centuries elapsed ere
man thought of cultivating Indian corn? How many more ere it had spread
over nearly a hundred degrees of latitude and lost all resemblance
to its original form?”[104] Certainly this class of evidence, though
furnishing no chronometric scale, points us to an antiquity for man on
this continent more venerable than that suggested either by tumuli or
architectural remains. The peculiar value of this argument rests in the
fact that with the exception of cotton, none of the plants indicated
have ever been cultivated by any other people than the aborigines of
America, and could not have matured their characteristics of dependence
in the old world, and been brought hither through the channel of
immigration.
Back of the age of man’s monuments of an architectural character,
beyond the beginning of the first existing shell-heap, and at a time
probably more remote than the first cultivation of maize, it has been
supposed that man occupied the Western Continent as a contemporary with
the mastodon, megalonyx and other extinct animals. Our information
in this department is entirely dependent upon the revelations of
geological science. Unfortunately very little data which may be termed
truly scientific has been brought to light. While considerable seeming
testimony to man’s antiquity on this continent has been produced
from a geologic quarter, still it mostly has been of an unscientific
character. Fossils and human remains are said to have been discovered
in localities and in associations that if the statements of those who
found them could be relied on, would give man an antiquity here as
great as in the valley of the Somme or in the bone caves of Belgium,
France, and England. In the instances alluded to, it is not so often
feared that the veracity of discoverers is doubtful as that their
general lack of acquaintance with the science should make them liable
to error. Where a competent geologist is not present to examine a
fossil _in situ_, and report intelligently upon its position and
surroundings, the case must remain open to suspicion. Unfortunately
for science, this is precisely the weak point in most of the reputed
“finds” which are cited as evidence in this field. In 1848, Count
Pourtales found in Florida, according to Agassiz, a human jaw and
teeth, and bones of the foot, embedded in a calcareous conglomerate
forming a part of a coral reef. This reef, according to Agassiz, may
be 135,000 years old, and the human remains at least ten thousand
years.[105] This statement has been accepted as reliable by Sir Charles
Lyell,[106] Daniel Wilson,[107] and other noted scientific gentlemen.
Count Pourtales, however, makes a statement which materially alters
the case. He says: “The human jaws and other bones found by myself in
Florida in 1848, were not in a coral formation, but in a fresh-water
sandstone on the shore of Lake Monroe, associated with fresh-water
shells or species still living in the lakes (Paulina, Ampullaria,
etc.). No date can be assigned to the formation of that deposit, at
least from present observation.”[108] Human remains were found a number
of years ago embedded in the solid rock in the island of Guadaloupe.
“But more careful investigation proved the rock to be a concretionary
limestone formed from the detritus of corals and shells.”[109] This
rock was ascertained to have been one of very rapid formation.
Sir Charles Lyell, in his _Travels in America_ in 1842, expressed the
opinion that certain human remains found embedded in the solid rock
near the town of St. Paul on the Santos River, Brazil, were of great
antiquity.[110] Subsequently referring to the memoir of Dr. Meigs on
the shell-heap of which the rock was a part,[111] he expresses the
opinion that shells were brought to the place and heaped up over the
remains, and “were bound together in a solid stone by the infiltration
of carbonate of lime, and the mound may therefore be of no higher
antiquity than those above alluded to on the Ohio.”[112] In a few
instances it has been alleged that the remains of man have been found
associated with the remains of the mastodon and other extinct animals.
More than thirty years ago Dr. Dickson of Natchez discovered the
pelvic bone of a man, the _os innominatum_, mingled with the bones of
extinct animals (megalonyx and mylodon). This discovery was made two
and one-half miles from Natchez, at the bottom of what is known as
Bernard’s Bayou, an immense ravine from thirty to sixty feet deep and
several miles long, formed by the convulsions of the earthquake of
1811–12. This bone is now in the possession of the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia. Sir Charles Lyell visited the spot where it
was discovered in 1846, and made a careful examination of the bone
then in the possession of Dr. Dickson, and also explored the “Mammoth
Ravine.” He discusses the case as follows: “It appeared to be quite in
the same state of preservation and was of the same black color as the
other fossils, and was believed to have come like them from a depth of
about thirty feet from the surface. In my _Second Visit to America_ in
1846,[113] I suggested as a possible explanation of this association of
a human bone with remains of a mastodon and megalonyx, that the former
may possibly have been derived from the vegetable soil at the top of
the cliff, where, as the remains of extinct mammalia were dislodged
from a lower position, and both may have fallen into the same heap or
talus at the bottom of the ravine, the pelvic bone might, I conceived,
have acquired its black color from having lain for years or centuries
in a dark superficial peaty soil common in that region. I was informed
that there were many human bones in old Indian graves in the same
district stained of as black a dye.” * * * “No doubt, had the pelvic
bone belonged to any recent mammifier other than man, such a theory
would never have been resorted to; but so long as we have only one
isolated case, and are without the testimony of a geologist who was
present to behold the bone when still engaged in the matrix, and to
extract it with his own hands, it is allowable to suspend our judgment
as to the high antiquity of the fossil”.[114] Both Dr. Joseph Leidy[115]
and Prof. C. G. Forshey,[116] who have examined the case, agree with
the above. A few years ago a fragment of matting composed of the outer
bark of the southern cane (_Arundinaria macrosperma_) was discovered
on Petit Anse Island in Vermillion Bay, Louisiana, in connection with
the remains of a fossil elephant. This island, containing about five
thousand acres, is the locality of an extraordinary mine of rock salt,
discovered and worked considerably during the late rebellion. The salt
is found in nearly all parts of the island at the depth of fifteen or
twenty feet below the surface of the soil. The matting was discovered
near the surface of the salt, and about two feet above it were the
remains of an elephant, including the tusks. Prof. Henry was the first
to call public attention to the matter in a notice based on the verbal
statements of T. F. Cleu, Esq., who presented a specimen of the matting
to the Smithsonian Institution.[117] In 1867, Prof. E. W. Hilgard and
Dr. E. Fontaine, secretary of the New Orleans Academy of Sciences,
examined the locality. We regret to say that the report made by the
latter is so confused in its use of terms and so conflicting in its
statements as to be of no service to science.[118] Prof. Hilgard is, on
the contrary, clear on the subject. He considers the heap in which the
matting, elephant bones, and subsequently pottery in great profusion,
were found, “A mass of detritus washed down from the surrounding
hills.” “The pottery,” he remarks, “at some points form veritable
strata three and six inches thick.” He then adds in a note that “it
is very positively stated that mastodon bones were found considerably
_above_ some of the human relics. In a detrital mass, however, this
cannot be considered a crucial test.”[119] Dr. Foster, after citing the
above, interposes the objection, “That in an island whose area is less
than eight miles square, there would be few floods of sufficient power
to transport such heavy bones as the tusks and molars of mastodons
to any considerable distance.”[120] Certainly the question is an
open one, and in its present unsettled status proves nothing. The
same uncertainty attaches itself to the discoveries of Dr. Lund, the
distinguished Swedish naturalist, made many years ago in the bone caves
of Minas Geraes, Brazil. This indefatigable investigator examined more
than eight hundred caverns, and in only six were human remains found.
In one instance out of the six, the remains were associated with the
bones of animals now extinct, but the original stratification had been
disturbed, and the presumption is that it was a case of comparatively
recent interment.[121]
The most remarkable instance of the supposed, or we might be allowed in
this case to say _pretended_ discovery of human remains in association
with those of extinct animals, is that set forth by Dr. Koch. This
collector of curiosities described his discovery of a _mastodon
giganteus_ in 1839 in Gasconade County, Missouri, at a spot on the
Bourbeuse River, first in a newspaper article of January 1839, and
cited in the _American Journal of Science and Arts_.[122] And a second
time in the St. Louis _Commercial Bulletin_ of June 25, 1839, which
article was also noticed in the above Journal.[123] This article was
signed “A. Koch, Proprietor of the St. Louis Museum.” Subsequently
he published descriptions in pamphlets, which unfortunately did not
always convey the same impressions.[124] Dr. Koch, after referring to
the discovery of a back and hip bone of this remarkable animal, gives
the following description: “I immediately commenced opening a much
larger space; the first layer of earth was a vegetable mould, then a
blue clay, then sand and blue clay. I found a large quantity of pieces
of rocks, weighing from two to twenty-five pounds each, evidently
thrown there with the intention of hitting some object. It is necessary
to remark that not the least sign of rocks or gravel is to be found
nearer than from four or five hundred yards, and that these pieces
were broken from larger rocks, and consequently carried here for some
express purpose. After passing through these rocks I came to a layer
of vegetable mould; on the surface of this was found the first blue
bone, with this a spear and axe; the spear corresponds precisely with
our common Indian spear; the axe is different from any I have seen.
Also on this earth were ashes nearly from six inches to one foot in
depth, intermixed with burned wood and burned bones, broken spears,
axes, knives, etc. The fire appeared to have been the largest on the
head and neck of the animal, as the ashes and coals were much deeper
here than in the rest of the body; the skull was quite perfect, but so
much burned that it crumbled to dust on the least touch; two feet from
this was found two teeth broken off from the jaw, but mashed entirely
to pieces. By putting them together, they showed the animal to have
been much larger than any heretofore discovered. It appeared by the
situation of the skeleton, that the animal had been sunk with its hind
feet in the mud and water, and, unable to extricate itself, had fallen
on its right side, and in that situation was found and killed as above
described; consequently the hind and fore-feet on the right side were
sunk deeper in the mud, and thereby saved from the effects of the fire;
therefore I was able to preserve the whole of the hind foot to the very
last joint, and the fore foot, all but some few small bones that were
too much decayed to be worth saving. Also between the rocks that had
sunk through the ashes, were found large pieces of skin that appeared
like fresh-tanned sole leather, strongly impregnated with the lye from
the ashes; and a great many of the sinews and arteries were plain to
be seen on the earth and rocks, but in such a state as not to be moved
except in small pieces the size of a hand, which are now preserved
in spirits.” “Should any doubts arise in the mind of the reader of
the correctness of the above statement, he can be referred to more
than twenty witnesses who were present at the time of digging.”[125]
Subsequent accounts agree substantially with the above except that
we never again hear of the “large pieces of skin,” the “sinews and
arteries,” “which are now preserved in spirits.” The presumption is
that the author, upon mature reflection, arrived at the conclusion
that in reality he had seen nothing of the kind, and in fact had never
preserved such relics in spirits.
Dr. Koch made a second discovery about one year subsequently in Benton
County, Missouri, in the bottom of the Pomme-de-Terre River, at about
ten miles above its junction with the Osage River. His description is
as follows: “The second trace of human existence with these animals
I found during the excavation of the Missourium. There was embedded
immediately under the femur or hind-leg bone of this animal, an
arrow-head of rose-colored flint, resembling those used by the American
Indians, but of larger size. This was the only arrow-head immediately
with the skeleton; but in the same strata, at a distance of five
or six feet, in a horizontal direction, four more arrow-heads were
found. Three of these were of the same formation as the preceding.
The fourth was of very rude workmanship. One of the last-mentioned
three was of agate, the others of blue flint. These arrow-heads are
indisputably the work of human hands. I examined the deposit in which
they were embedded, and raised them out of their embedment with my
own hands. The original stratum on which this river flowed at the
time it was inhabited by the _Missourium theristocaulodon_ and up
to the time of its destruction, was of the upper green sand. On the
surface of this stratum, and partly mingled with it, was the deposit
of the before-described skeleton. The next stratum is from three to
four feet in thickness, and consisted of a brown alluvium of the
_Eocene_ region, and was composed of vegetable matters of a tropical
production. It contained all the remainder of the skeleton.” “Most of
these vegetables were in a great state of preservation and consisted
of a large quantity of cypress burs, wood and bark, tropical cane,
ferns, palmetto leaves, several stumps of trees, and even the greater
part of a flower of the strelitzia class, which when destroyed was not
full blown. There was no sign or indication of any very large trees;
the cypresses that were discovered being the largest that were growing
here at the time. These various matters had been torn up by their roots
and twisted and split into a thousand pieces apparently by lightning
combined with a tremendous tempest or tornado; and all were involved
in one common ruin. Several veins of iron pyrites ran through the
stratum.” “The next over this formation was a layer of plastic clay
of the _Eocene_ region, also with iron pyrites. It was three feet in
thickness; over this a layer of conglomerate from nine to eighteen
inches in thickness; over this a layer of marl of the Pliocene region,
from three to four feet in thickness; next, a second conglomerate from
nine to eighteen inches in thickness. This was succeeded by a layer of
yellow clay of the Pliocene; over this a third layer of conglomerate
from nine to eighteen inches in thickness, and at last the present
surface, consisting of brownish clay mingled with a few pebbles, and
covered with large oak, maple, and elm trees, which were, as near as I
could ascertain, from eighty to one hundred years old. In the centre
of the above-mentioned deposit was a large spring which appeared to
rise from the very bowels of the earth, as it was never affected by the
severest rain, nor did it become lower by the longest draught.”[126]
The preceding accounts were presented to the St. Louis Academy of
Sciences in a special paper several years later (1857).[127]
Dr. Foster is inclined to believe that Dr. Koch was not mistaken
in his claimed discovery, having arrived at that opinion by
pointedly questioning him on the subject a short time before his
(Koch’s) death.[128] Charles Rau is also of the opinion that he was
truthful.[129] Mr. J. D. Dana, however, discusses the case as follows:
“In the account of the second case above cited Dr. Koch says that
the Missourium was embedded in a brown alluvium of the Eocene region
resting on the ‘upper green sand;’ that next over it was plastic
clay of the ‘Eocene region’ and beds of the ‘Pliocene region.’ He
thus makes his Missourium to have come from the lower tertiary, and
from a bed just above the green sand (cretaceous) when actually from
quartenary beds; and he uses the terms Eocene and Pliocene, as if he
had no familiarity with geological facts or language. The earlier
pamphlet of 1840 avoids this bad geology, ‘the upper green sand,’ in
that being called simply quicksand and the other beds merely beds of
clay and conglomerate. All the pamphlets sustain the conclusion that
Dr. Koch knew almost nothing of geology, and that what he gradually
picked up from intercourse with geologists, he generally made much of
but seldom was able to use rightly.”[130] The same critic says: “In
zoological knowledge he was equally deficient,” and cites the fact of
the discoverer recognizing the resemblance to the mastodon, still makes
the animal an inhabitant of the watercourses like the hippopotamus;
states that his food “consisted as much of vegetables as of flesh,
although he undoubtedly consumed a great abundance of the latter,”
and makes the marvelous revelation that he “_was capable of feeding
himself with his fore-foot after the manner of the beaver or otter_.”
Mr. Dana continues: “He says that one arrow-head lay ‘immediately under
the femur or thigh-bone,’ and he further states in his later article
of 1857, that ‘he carefully thought to investigate the point as to
its having been brought thither after the deposit of the bone’ and
decided against it. The observation and conclusion would have been more
satisfactory had the author been a better observer.” “The descriptions
of the deposits in Gasconade County containing the remains of an
animal the principal part of which was consumed by fire is a still
more unsatisfactory basis for a safe conclusion as to age. But in the
article of 1857, he says that the layer of ashes, etc., ‘was covered
by strata or alluvial deposits consisting of clay, sand and soil,
from eight to nine feet thick, _forming the bottom of the Bourbeuse
(River) in general_,’ which seems to make it almost certain that the
beds were of quite recent origin.”[131] Mr. Dana considers Dr. Koch’s
evidence as “_very doubtful_.”[132] Dr. Foster has figured a fossil
which, for a better name, he has designated as a “stone hatchet,” from
the modified drift of Jersey County, Illinois.[133] He is positive as
to the position in which it was found, but has doubt as to its human
origin. The probabilities are that its peculiar shape is due to its
exposure to atmospheric agents. He remarks, however: “On the whole, I
will not positively assert that this specimen is of human workmanship,
but I affirm that if it had been recovered from a plowed field I should
have unhesitatingly said it was an Indian hatchet.” In the _Proceedings
of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences_ for July, 1859, Dr. Holmes
describes the occurrence of fragments of pottery in close proximity
with the bones of the mastodon and megatherium, on the Ashley River in
South Carolina. The case, however, has not been considered authentic
by scientific men. Dr. Holmes is possibly mistaken.[134] Col. Charles
Whittlesey, in 1838, saw at Portsmouth, Ohio, on the Ohio River,
remains of ancient fire-places situated eighteen to twenty feet above
low water and about fifteen feet below the surface. He states, “at low
water and thence up to a height of twelve or fifteen feet is a bed of
sand and transported gravel, containing pebbles of quartz, granite,
sandstone and limestone, derived partly from the adjacent Carboniferous
and Devonian rocks and partly from the northern drift, the upper part
much the coarsest. On this is a layer of blue quicksand from one to
five feet thick, in which is a timber-bed including large numbers of
the trunks, branches, stumps and leaves of trees, such as are now
growing on the Ohio, principally birch, black-ash, oak and hickory.
Over the dirt-bed is the usually loamy yellow clay of the valley,
fifteen to thirty feet thick, on which are very extensive works of the
Mound-builders. In and near the bottom of this undisturbed homogeneous
river-loam I saw two places where fire had been built on a circular
collection of small stones, a part of which were then embedded in the
bank.”[135] Near these fire-places the writer of the above found the
membranous covering of common river shells (the Unios). We think that
no geologist familiar with the constant changes of the Ohio River bed,
will consider that the conditions surrounding these ancient fire-places
warrant us in assigning them a much greater antiquity than we attach
to the Mound-builders’ works in the neighborhood. In 1846, Sir Charles
Lyell, when at New Orleans, made an estimate of the time required to
account for the immense annual deposit of the Mississippi River in the
neighborhood of its delta. From a computation based on certain data,
which assumed the area of the alluvial plain which is the result of
those deposits, to equal 30,000 square miles, several hundred feet
thick in some places, he estimated that probably 100,000 years would
be requisite.[136] Subsequently, during the process of excavating for
the New Orleans Gas Works, it was found necessary to cut through four
buried cypress forests. At the depth of sixteen feet and on the fourth
forest level, a human skeleton distinctly of the Indian type,[137] was
found under the roots of a cypress tree, together with burnt wood. Dr.
Dowler, dividing the history of the delta into, 1. The epoch of grasses
or aquatic plants; 2. That of the cypress (_Taxodium distichum_)
basins, and 3. That of the live-oak platform, tabulates the age of the
strata overlying the skeleton as follows:
Epoch of aquatic plants 1,500 years
Epoch of the cypress basin, in which he assumes
only two successive growths 11,400 „
Epoch of live-oak platform 1,500 „
——————
Total 14,400 years
The basis for his estimate of the age of the cypress basins was the
computed age of the trees of the fourth level, ten feet in diameter and
probably reaching 5,700 years.[138] Sir Charles Lyell in a later work,
though still adhering to his former estimate of the time required in
which to form the delta, cannot accept Dr. Dowler’s great antiquity
for the remains.[139] The question in hand of course involves the
question of the antiquity of the deposit where the skeleton was found,
which is well-nigh identical with the vexed question of the age of
the delta. The very diversity of opinion on this subject precludes
the possibility of its consideration here. We will content ourselves
by citing two estimates in addition to those already given. Professor
Edward Hitchcock calculated that the entire delta embraced a bulk
of matter equal to 2,720 _cubic_ miles, for the deposit of which he
thought 14,204 years necessary.[140] Humphries and Abbot think that
both the area and thickness of the deposit have been overstated, and
instead of 30,000 square miles for the former, they claim only 19,450.
As to the latter, they estimate the thickness of the alluvial matter as
but twenty-five feet on the river banks along the St. Francis swamp;
thirty-five along the Yazoo swamp, and continuing of uniform thickness
to Baton Rouge; while the artesian well at New Orleans showed it in
that locality to reach a point forty feet below the level of the Gulf.
These authors base their calculations as to the age of the deposits on
the following ascertained facts: the total yearly contributions of the
river equal a prism two hundred and sixty-eight feet in height, with a
base of one mile square; two hundred and sixty-two feet is the supposed
mean yearly advance of the river; the original mouth of the Mississippi
was near the afflux of the Bayou Plaquemine, and has hence progressed
two hundred and twenty miles since it began to empty its deposits into
the Gulf. Supposing these data to be correct, they estimate that only
four thousand four hundred years have elapsed since that period.[141]
This would give the skeleton alluded to a comparatively recent origin.
We are inclined to believe that the above estimate assigns a period for
the formation of the delta as much too short as that of Sir Charles was
too long. As to the antiquity of the skeleton, probably Dr. Foster’s
solution of the question is as near correct as any that ever may be
proposed: “Thus, then, with these carefully-observed computations
before us, we are not prepared to accept the high antiquity assigned
by Dr. Dowler to the human remains found beneath the surface at New
Orleans. What he regards as four buried forests which once flourished
on the spot, may be nothing more than driftwood brought down the river
in former times which became embedded in the silts and sediments which
were deposited on what was then the floor of the Gulf.”[142]
If all the indications were verified, we should be justified in
assigning man a much greater antiquity in the Rocky Mountain region
and on the Pacific slope than in any other part of North America.
Mr. E. L. Berthoud collected numerous stone implements in what he
considers to be tertiary gravel on Crow Creek and in the region of
the South Platte River, Lat. 40 N., Long. 104 W. Two shells secured
in the same locality by him have been pronounced a _corbicula_ and a
_rangia_ respectively, and are thought to belong to the older Pliocene
or possibly to the Miocene.[143] The evidence in this case is, however,
unsatisfactory, and cannot be admitted to be of scientific value
without further authentication.
In 1857 a portion of a human cranium was found associated with bones
of the mastodon at the depth of one hundred and eighty feet below the
surface in a mining shaft at Table Mountain, California. Dr. C. F.
Winslow sent this fragment to the Boston Natural History Society, but
no importance was attached to it, since no other evidence other than
that furnished by workmen in the mine could be obtained. Subsequently,
when an entire skull was reported to have been found in the gold drift
near Angelos in Calaveras County, in a shaft one hundred and fifty
feet deep, the intelligent portion of the community pronounced the
finder guilty of a scientific fraud, and it is not yet a certainty
that their decision was incorrect. However, Professor Whitney, of the
State Geological Survey, upon hearing of the case examined the mine,
and found that the shaft passed through five beds of lava and volcanic
tufa and four beds of auriferous gravel. It was in one of these beds
that the skull was said to have been found. Some of the cemented gravel
was still adhering to the skull when it came into the Professor’s
possession, and Professor Wyman, to whom it was submitted subsequently,
refers to the difficulty which he had in removing the incrustation.
Professor Whitney, on the testimony of the possessor of the skull,
pronounced it an authentic “find,” and while his decision has been
acquiesced in by a number of scientific gentlemen of repute, Professor
Wyman among them, still the great majority, we believe, are unwilling
to rest their faith on such slender evidence. Though no crack was
apparent through which the skull might have fallen from the surface,
such might have existed at an earlier period. In a region which is the
product of volcanic action there is room for suspicion, especially in
cases like both of these, where, as Sir Charles Lyell has said, no
geologist was present at the moment of discovery to see the fossil
_in situ_ and extricate it with his own hands from the matrix which
contained it.
President Edward Orton, of the Ohio State University, recently called
our attention to the discovery of relics of human workmanship found
many years ago near Waynesville, Ohio, at the depth of over twelve feet
below the surface. Dr. Robert Furnas, a clergyman of the Society of
Friends, courteously furnished us the following statement: “The relic
was obtained about the year 1824. It was in the process of digging a
well for my grandfather. My father, then twenty-one years of age, was
performing the work of excavation, when at the depth of thirteen or
fourteen feet he came to a dark mould about two feet deep, on the top
of which was lying _a thimble and a piece of coarse cloth_ six inches
wide and a yard long. The outer edge containing the fringe showing
the end of the _chain_ or warp at the end of the fabric and point of
fastening in weaving.” “The removal above after passing through the
soil consisted of solid clay of a yellowish-brown color. The farm was
purchased by my grandfather in 1803, and occupied by him to the time
of his death in 1863. He was the pioneer of the place, having settled
there in an unbroken forest. The location is on the top of the hill
on the east side of the Little Miami River forty or fifty feet above
the level of the stream. The cloth soon lost all traces of texture on
coming in contact with the air. The thimble was in a pretty good state
of preservation.”[144] Professor Orton, who has examined the locality
and studied the case in hand, expressed the opinion to us that it was
not only authentic, but (while not amounting to absolute proof) seemed
to associate man’s works with a deposit which has furnished remains
of the mastodon. The Professor considers the dark mould referred to
as that upon which the relics were lying to be of an inter-glacial
vegetable deposit peculiar to Southern Ohio, and once constituting
an ancient surface of the land inhabited with animal life.[145] The
cloth from its coarse character bears a resemblance to that of the
mounds, while its length of just a yard is suggestive of more modern
measurements.[146]
Dr. C. C. Abbott has unquestionably discovered many palæolithic
implements in the glacial drift in the valley of the Delaware River
near Trenton, New Jersey. Among a number of rude implements from the
undisturbed gravel of the region is a spear-head, found six feet from
the surface, on the site of the Lutheran Church, Broad Street, Trenton,
N. J. The circumstances surrounding it were such as to justify the
conclusion that the weapon had not gotten into its position where found
“subsequently to the deposition of the containing layer of pebbles.”
Subsequent investigation has brought to light sixty well finished flint
implements, all of them from what appears to be undisturbed drift.
Some of the relics have as many as from twenty to forty planes of
cleavage, all equally weathered. The specimens are not unlike their
neolithic counterparts taken from the aboriginal graves and stone cists
of Tennessee.[147] Dr. Abbott concludes that the gravel, boulders,
and rude implements associated with them were deposited by ice-rafts
on the descent of a glacier down the valley, and that man more rude
and ancient than the red Indian dwelt at the foot of the glacier,
being driven south by its advance and following it again to the north
upon its return.[148] Professors Shaler and Pumpelly, however, while
considering the deposit as of glacial origin, think it was subsequently
modified by water-action. Dr. Abbott, with great fairness, admits that,
“Inasmuch as such subsequent action may have occurred long after the
final deposition of the gravel, as true glacial drift, the antiquity of
the contained stone implements is proportionately lessened.” Professor
Shaler, after a partial examination of the locality, remarks that “if
these remains are really those of man, they prove the existence of
inter-glacial man on this part of our shore.”[149] Dr. Abbott and Prof.
Aug. R. Grote believe that the Eskimo is the surviving representative
of paleolithic and glacial man in North America. The latter believes
that man reached this continent during the Pliocene, and before the
ice-period had interfered with a warm climate in the north.[150]
Recently Dr. Abbott has said: “It may be that, as investigations are
carried further, it will result not so much in proving man of very
great antiquity, as in showing how much more recent than usually
supposed was the final disappearance of the glacier.”[151] On page
30 we referred to mounds examined in the North-west, N. lat. 47°, W.
long. 98° 38´, by General H. W. Thomas.[152] In these mounds crania
indicating a very low type of intelligence were discovered—in form
resembling skulls of the great Gibbon monkey.[153] From the standpoint
of the development theory (and by this we do not mean evolution, but
that progression which takes place when a savage advances from his
low state toward civilization), the evidences are abundant that man
is older by far on the Western side of the continent and perhaps in
the North-west, than elsewhere in the new world. Though this discovery
by General Thomas does not reach back in antiquity to geologic times,
still it cannot be denied that a considerable period must have elapsed
before low-type crania of the North-west could have developed into the
crania of the Ohio Valley Mounds. Professor James Orton, in commenting
on the investigations of Wilson on the coast of Equador, refers to the
discovery of gold, copper and stone vestiges of a former population
in the system of terraces traced from the coast through the province
of Esmeraldas to Quito. He remarks: “In all cases these relics are
situated below high-tide mark, in a bed of marine sediment, from which
he (Wilson) infers that this part of the country formerly stood higher
above the sea. If this be true, vast must be the antiquity of these
remains, for the upheaval and subsidence of the coast is exceedingly
slow.”[154] The antiquity of man in Europe is an established fact, but
how remote is a question which science as yet fails to answer. When
geologic research opens up Central Asia, no doubt man will be found to
have existed there a long period anterior to his advent in Europe. But
for the decadence of Arabic glory and learning we should now probably
be in possession of a fund of information concerning that region as
well as of man’s early history. Were the discovery of the human skull
in the gold drift of California an authentic case, we should have
strong reasons for supposing a remote intercourse existed between Asia
and the Pacific coast. It is quite certain the crania of the North-west
Mounds, as compared with those of the Mississippi region, clearly point
to that fact. We have seen that as yet no truly scientific proof of
man’s great antiquity in America exists. This conclusion is concurred
in by most eminent authorities.[155] At present we are probably
not warranted in claiming for him a much longer residence on this
continent than that assigned him by Sir John Lubbock, namely, 3,000
years. Future research may develop the fact that man is as old here
as in Europe, and that he was contemporaneous with the Mastodon. As
the case stands in the present state of knowledge, it furnishes strong
presumptive evidence that man is not autochthonic here, but exotic,
having originated in the old world, perhaps thousands of years prior to
reaching the new.