a respectable age have been vigorously assailed by Hrdlicka,[1] and, consequently, placed in the doubtful column. Nevertheless, one must suspect that where so many cases arise which exercise the utmost ingenuity of scientists to disprove, the probability of some being authentic is very great. The one positive point resulting from these controversies is that whatever may be the age of the skeletons in question, they are of the same general type as those of the surviving New World native. This finding is consistent with our conclusions as to his homogeneity and probable single origin. On the other hand, it will not do to argue that unless we find skeletons that do differ from this general type, they cannot, therefore, be old. But as this question of the antiquity of man in the western world is not our present concern, we may accept the above conclusion in-so-far as it applies to the homogeneity of type. Under such conditions, the problem of antiquity shifts to the geological and faunal associations. For example, the contemporaneity of man and the mammoth has not yet been established for North America, whereas in Europe there cannot be the least doubt of it. There is just one case of association with extinct fauna that promises something. In 1914 a human skeleton was found in the famous La Brea asphalt bed of southern California, among the bones of both extinct and extant animals.[2] When this deposit is completely excavated and its faunal strata determined, we may have an early date for man's appearance here, though not earlier than late Pleistocene. Again, however, the somatic type is the same. We may anticipate, therefore, no future skeleton finds but what are of the general New World type, but if we consider the data in other parts of this work, we must expect some of them to have a respectable antiquity.
While this point of view applies to the New World as a whole, it still remains possible that there have been changes in the sub-types occupying some of the areas we have just designated. Something like this is suggested for South America,[3] where we find some reasons for assuming that the coast, at least, was first occupied by a fishing people with long heads, who later gave way to a round-headed population.
