History, Ancient; Human beings -- Origin; Prehistoric peoples
This is not a solitary instance, for the Professor reports as the
result of his personal inquiries only a year ago in the district,
that "the evidence that human implements and fragments of the human
skeleton have been found in the stratum of gravel underneath the lava
of Table Mountain seems to be abundantly sufficient;" among others a
fragment of a skull which came up with a bucketful of dirt from 180
feet below the surface of Table Mountain at Tuolumne.
Dr. Wallace, in an article on the "Antiquity of Man in North
America," in the _Nineteenth Century_ of November 1887, thus
enumerates some of the principal instances--
"In Tuolumne county from 1862 to 1865 stone mortars and platters were
found in the auriferous gravel along with bones and teeth of mastodon
90 feet below the surface, and a stone muller was obtained in a
tunnel driven under Table Mountain. In 1870 a stone mortar was found
at a depth of 60 feet in gravel under clay and 'cement,' as the hard
clay with vegetable remains (the old volcanic ash) is called by the
miners. In Calaveras county from 1860 to 1869 many mortars and other
stone implements were found in the gravels under lava beds, and in
other auriferous gravels and clays at a depth of 150 feet. In Amador
county stone mortars have been found in similar gravel at a depth of
40 feet. In Placer county stone platters and dishes have been found
in auriferous gravels from 10 to 20 feet below the surface. In Nevada
county stone mortars and ground discs have been found from 15 to 30
feet deep in the gravel. In Butte county similar mortars and pestles
have been found in the lower gravel beneath lava beds and auriferous
gravel; and many other similar finds have been recorded....
"Even these Californian remains do not exhaust the proofs of man's
great antiquity in America, since we have the record of another
discovery which indicates that he may, possibly, have existed at
an even more remote epoch. Mr. E. L. Berthoud has described the
finding of stone implements of a rude type in the Tertiary gravels
of the Crow Creek, Colorado. Some shells were obtained from the same
gravels, which were determined by Mr. T. A. Conrad to be species
which are 'certainly not older than Older Pliocene, or possibly
Miocene.'"
I do not dwell on the discoveries which have been made of human
implements and skeletons in the cases of Minas Geraes in Brazil, and
in the drift or loess of the pampas of Buenos Ayres, for although
associated with extinct animals usually considered as Pliocene, there
is a difference of opinion among competent geologists, whether the
deposits are really Tertiary or only early Quaternary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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