Early Man in South America (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book Early Man in South America (Classic Reprint) written by Ale Hrdlicka and published by . This book was released on 2015-06-28 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Early Man in South America Between the years 1899 and 1907 the writer carried on a series of investigations with regard to the various skeletal remains which suggested or were attributed to ancient man in North America. These studies resulted in a number of publications culminating in a general treatise comprehending the whole subject, which appeared as Bulletin 33 of the Bureau of American Ethnology. The results of the investigations seemed at first to lend support to the theory of considerable antiquity for some of the remains presented as evidence, as, for example, the two low skulls discovered at Trenton, New Jersey. Subsequent researches however, cleared up most of the uncertain points and the entire inquiry appeared to establish the fact that no specimen had come to light in the northern continent, which, from the standpoint of physical anthropology, represented other than a relatively modern man. The possibility of discovering osseous remains of man of geologic antiquity in North America still exists, but, as was brought out in the studies referred to, any find to be accepted as establishing the existence of such man would have to be unequivocally authenticated by the anthropologist and the geologist working in cooperation. The various conclusions reached in these studies seem to have been quite generally accepted and no further discoveries of osseous remains pointing to the presence of early man in this part of the world have been made. While occupied with the subject of mans antiquity in North America, the writer became more directly interested in the reports of related discoveries in South America, particularly in Argentina. It was soon found, however, that these reports, or at least those dealing with the finds of human remains up to 1907, were singularly incomplete and unsatisfactory. The records of the many cases were full of defects and uncertainties which, owing to the distance of the field and other difficulties, seemed insurmountable obstacles preventing the formation of a definite opinion as to the merit of any of the finds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.