The Myths of the North American IndiansSpence, Lewis
History
The Myths of the North American Indians
Spence, Lewis
Indian mythology -- North America; Indians of North America -- Folklore
In 1866 Professor J. D. Whitney discovered the famous 'Calaveras' skull
at a depth of about a hundred and thirty feet in a bed of auriferous
gravel on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, California. The
skull rested on a bed of lava, and was covered by several layers of
lava and volcanic deposit. Many other remains were found in similar
geological positions, and this was thought to prove that the Calaveras
skull was not an isolated instance of the presence of man in America in
Tertiary times. The skull resembles the Eskimo type, and chemical
analysis discovered the presence of organic matter. These
circumstances led to the conclusion that the great age claimed by
Whitney for the relic was by no means proved, and this view was
strengthened by the knowledge that displacements of the deposits in
which it had been discovered had frequently been caused by volcanic
agency.
{9}
More Recent Finds
More recent finds have been summarized by an eminent authority
connected with the United States Bureau of Ethnology as follows: "In a
post-Glacial terrace on the south shore of Lake Ontario the remains of
a hearth were discovered at a depth of twenty-two feet by Mr. Tomlinson
in digging a well, apparently indicating early aboriginal occupancy of
the St. Lawrence basin. From the Glacial or immediately post-Glacial
deposits of Ohio a number of articles of human workmanship have been
reported: a grooved axe from a well twenty-two feet beneath the
surface, near New London; a chipped object of waster type at
Newcomerstown, at a depth of sixteen feet in Glacial gravel; chipped
stones in gravels, one at Madisonville at a depth of eight feet, and
another at Loveland at a depth of thirty feet. At Little Falls, Minn.,
flood-plain, deposits of sand and gravel are found to contain many
artificial objects of quartz. This flood-plain is believed by some to
have been finally abandoned by the Mississippi well back toward the
close of the Glacial period in the valley, but that these finds warrant
definite conclusions as to time is seriously questioned by Chamberlain.
In a Missouri river-beach near Lansing, Kansas, portions of a human
skeleton were recently found at a depth of twenty feet, but geologists
are not agreed as to the age of the formation. At Clayton, Mo., in a
deposit believed to belong to the loess, at a depth of fourteen feet, a
well-finished grooved axe was found. In the Basin Range region,
between the Rocky Mountains and the sierras, two discoveries that seem
to bear on the antiquity of human occupancy have been reported: in a
silt deposit in Walker River Valley, Nevada, believed to be {10} of
Glacial age, an obsidian implement was obtained at a depth of
twenty-five feet; at Nampa, Idaho, a clay image is reported to have
been brought up by a sand-pump from a depth of three hundred and twenty
feet in alternating beds of clay and quicksand underlying a lava flow
of late Tertiary or early Glacial age. Questions are raised by a
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