Antiquity of Man in America

Abstract

RECENT excavations by an expedition of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences at Clovis, New Mexico, under the field direction of Mr. Edgar B. Howard, have brought to light masses of bones of mammoth and of extinct species of horse and bison, together with what are thought to be camel bones, in old lake beds. Although no human bones have been found, numbers of stone spear-points, knives and scrapers have been found in the same beds, not far from the animal remains. Earlier excavations by Mr. Howard in a cave near Carlsbad, New Mexico, revealed hearths at varying depths down to eight feet, with the bones of musk-ox and bison, which had been used for food. Stone spear-points were also found among the debris of the hearths. The evidence from the two sites is taken as lending further support to the view, which is gaining ground among anthropologists in the United States, that the arrival of man on the American continent must be placed at a much earlier date than that hitherto generally accepted.