Dham, V/8.i-ren. Man in the ice age^ at^ _ '..ansing, Wnsas , ana Litr;., alls , ■-.'linncsota. :iTH EDITORIAL CO!G^KT , b; ■rof. IL H. rJlnchell and ^ ^ 3TES OH THE LANSING ..'IffiLb- ON, BY Prof. .;'. <- • '-iH'^s -i-om: the American GeoloEl 30. September, I'dUd, Huntington Free Library Native American Collection cw )^^h 5.^.5 - I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY MV3EVM0FTHEAMER-1CAN INDIAN! [,^l*^lj.i.l,uii..i.i,l .,ii, .„i.„ n„i[,i.uni .|. MARSHALL H. SAVILLE COLLECTION £'iJ?!!l!^!r,':,.i'.NrVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 097 761 278 DATE DUE tM^ ^.— -- f\yw ~l!r""tX)VJ~ 1 1 GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. (f^p^^^^f^^ ^.^..-f^.^^ MAN IN THE ICE AGE AT LANSING, KANSAS, AND LITTLE FALLS, MINNESOTA. BY WARREN UPHAM, ST. PAUL, MINN. WITH EDITORIAL COMMENT, BY PROF. N. H. WINCHELL, AND-' NOTES ON THE LANSING SKELETON, BY PROF. S. W. WILLISTON. From the American Geologist, September, 1902. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924097761278 ■"^«s^ V . £a■ f Man in the Ice Age. — Uphain. 139 and at the end of the tunnel, consists for its upper two-thirds of the very fine siliceous and calcareous yellowish gray silt called loess, containing no rock fragments nor layers of gravel and sand, excepting a thin layer of fine gravel, with limestone and shale pebbles up to a half inch in diameter, which was noted by Mr. Butts near the roof of the tunnel, having a thickness of about four inches and an observed extent of some 30 feet. Soon after the skeleton was imbedded in the stony debris, or - lay exposed on its surface, the geologic conditions that appear to have long prevailed were somewhat suddenly changed, and there ensued a more rapid deposition of the very fine water- laid loess, deeply enveloping the bones before they had time to be generally removed by decay under the influences of the weather and infiltrating air and water. From the horizon of the skeleton, the loess extends up to the surface, a vertical thickness of 20 feet, and continues in a gently rising slope to a slight terrace on which Mr. Concannon's house stands. With sirtiilar irregularly eroded slopes, the loess continues up- ward to the general elevation of about 200 feet above the river within a distance of a fourth of a mile to a half mile south- ward and westv/ard, attaining there a general level which was probably the surface of the river's flood plain at the maximum stage of the loess deposition. This plain appears to have been built up by gradual deposition from the broad river floods during many years and centuries, and to have stretched then over the present valley and bottomland of the Mis- souri, in this vicinity two to four miles wide, from which area it has been since removed by the river erosion. The great val- ley, as to its inclosing rock outcrops, is of preglacial age; it was not much changed by glacial erosion and deposition of the boulder drift ; but it was deeply filled by the loess, in which the vallev was afterwards re-excavated. Professor Wilfiston noted a distinct darker layer of loess,- mostlv about two inches thick but in part merely a threadlike line, traceable continuously through all the 72 feet of the west wall of the tunnel, running about 3 to 4 feet above the lime- stone floor, and one foot or a little more above the base of the loess. Pegs driven bv our party at the line of this stratum along all its extent were seen to be in a straight plane, which bv a hand level was found to have a descent of 7 or 8 inches 140 The American Geologist. September, 1902 from south to north in this distance. Other Hnes of almost horizontal stratification exist, but are less observable, through- out the loess, which is thus clearly shown to be an aqueous de- posit. Several small gastropod shells were found in it by mem- bers of our party, but they were too delicate to be preserved for determination of their species. Three others, which have been carefully preserved by Mr. Butts, are said tO' have been found at the same place with the skeleton. To ascertain the date of this fossil man in the sequence of the time divisions or stages of the Ice age, we must have re- course to the classification of these stages in their chronologic order as defined during the last ten years by the field observa- tions and writings of Chamberlin, James Geikie, and other eminent glacialists; both of America and Europe. In the Uni- ted States we owe more to the careful studies of glacial geol- ogists in Iowa than in any other state, in respect to the series and probable duration of the stages recognizable in the Gla- cial period. Calvin, McGee, Call, Leverett, Bain, Uddeti, ' Shimek, and others, have worked very advantageously on the drift series in Iowa; and their work has been supplemented, for the later drift deposits farther north, by Chamberlin, Sal- isbury, Winchell, Todd, and the present writer, in Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Manitoba, and by the late Dr. George M. Dawson and his associates in the Geological Sur- vey of Canada. From these very thorough explorations and discussions of the history of the Ice age, we have, received, chiefly through the systematic correlations of ChamberHn, Dawson, Calvin, and Leverett, an elaborate classification of its successive epochs and stages, which, for definite statement of the geologic date of the loess and thie Lansing skeleton, need to be here briefly noted, as follows. I. The culmination of the Ozarkian epeirogenic uplift, in the later part of the Lafayette period, the earliest of the Qua- ternary era, affecting both North America and Europe, raised the glaciated areas to so high altitudes that they received snow throughout the year and became deeply ice-enveloped. Sub- merged valleys and fjords show that this elevation was at least 1000 to 4000 feet above the present hight. Rudely chipped stone implements and human bones in the plateau gravel of southern England, 90 feet and higher above the Thames, and Man in the Ice Age. — Upham. 141 the similar traces of man in early Quaternary sand and gravel deposits of the Somme and other valleys in France, attest man's existence there before the maximum stages of the uplift and of the Ice age. The accumulation of the ice-sheets, due to snow- fall on their entire areas, was attended by fluctuations of their gradually; extending boundaries, giving the Scanian,and Norfolk- ian stages, named by Geikie, in Europe, the Albertan formation of very early glacial drift and accompanying gravels, described by Dawson,, in Alberta and the Saskatchewan district of west- ern Canada, and an early glacial advance, recession, and re-ad- vance, in the region of the Moose and Albany rivers, southwest of Hudson bay. In that region, and westward on the Canadian plains to the Rocky mountains, there seem to have been thus three stages recognizable in the glacial results of the epeiro- genic uplift, namely, the Albertan early ice accumulation, the later time represented by the Saskatchewan gravels, of abun- dant glacial melting, and extensive retreat, and afterward a vast growth of the continental icefields to their farthest limit, when they reached south to Kansas. The first recognized stage of glaciation in North America is therefore called the Albertan stage. On the. Atlantic coastal plain of the United States, south of the glacial drift, this stage is probably represented b}' the Lafayette formation ; and the subsequent deep fluvial erosion of the Lafayette beds I attribute to the very long) ensuing Aftonian and K^nsan stages. 2. A deposit of glacial drift, the lov/est and oldest observed in the Mississippi river basin, probably of Albertan age, stretch- es south at least to southern Iowa, Mdiere it is overlain by in- terglacial beds, inclosing peat, well displayed in sections at Afton, Iowa. The Aftonian interglacial time, especially notable for its extensive buried forest bed, containing trunks of hardv northern coniferous trees, has been ascertained to be earlier than the Kansan readvance of glaciation.. It is therefore probabty equivalent with the Saskatchewan stage of Canada, which name it should then displace according to the rule of priority. This second time division of the Glacial period, in- cluding a very important recession of the ice border, uncover- ing the previously glaciated country as far north, probably, as 142 The American Geologist. September, i902 to the southern half of Minnesota, is therefore named the Af- tonian stage. During this time, apparently, the Mississippi river in the vicinity of Minneapolis eroded a rock channel which is now mostly filled by the drift of the later glaciation, but is marked by a series of lakes, namely. Cedar lake, the Lake of the Isles, lakes Calhoun and Harriet, and others farther south. Prof. N. H. Winchell from his study of this interglacial channel of the Mississippi, has estimated the .duration of the interglacial stage there as about 15,000 years.* It seems to be represented also in the history of the Quaternary lakes Bonneville and La Hontan, respectively described by Gilbert and Russell, as a pro- longed stage of desiccation of those lakes under a drier cli- mate, while their earlier and later flood stages are correlated with the Albertan and Kansan stages of glaciation. Near the southern limit of the glacial drift, the Aftonian interval was doubtless much longer than in Minnesota. 3. During the Kansan stage the ice-sheet attained its farth- est extent in the Missouri and Mississippi. river basins, and in northern New Jersey. It is correlative \yith the Saxonian stage of maximum glaciation in Europe. The area of the North American ice-sheet, with its development on the Arctic arch- ipelago, was about 4,000,000 square miles ; and of the European ice-sheet, with its tracts now occupied by the White, Baltic, North, and Irish seas, about 2,000,000 square miles. 4. In the Helvetian stage, named by Geikie from its re- cognition in SAvitzerland and elsewhere in Europe, the ice- sheets receded far from their Saxonian and Kansan bounda- ries. The Buchanan gravels and sands, as named by Calvin in Iowa, were deposited during the retreat of the Kansan ice- fields ; and this time is also represented by the Yarmouth weath- ered zone and" erosion of the Kansan drift, noted by Leverett in Iowa and Illinois. The greater part of the drift area in Russia was permanently relinquished during this stage by the much diminished ice-sheet, which also retreated considerably on all sides. 5. The loivan stage was marked by renewed accumulation of snow and ice, extending over a part of the country that had been laid bare by the preceding retreat. Before the farthest *Am. Geologist, \o\. X, pp. 69-SO. with map and sections, Aue . 1892- an* p. 302, Not., 1892. ^' °='^''*"'' Alan in the Ice Age. — Upham. 143^ extension of this glacjation in Iowa, on the west side of the Wisconsin driftless area, the ice-lobe east of that area advanced -from Illinois into the edge of southeastern Iowa, giving an II- linoian stage of glaciation which somewhat antedated the maxi- mum of the iowan, though not probably by a wide difference of time. Between the retreat of the Illinoian ice-lobe and the deposition of the Iowan loess, Leverett notes interglacial depos- its and a zone of weathering, the records of his Sangamon stage. Iowan time seems correlative with the Polandian stage of renewed growth of the European ice-sheet. In this late part of the Glacial period the northern lands, which had long stood at greater altitudes than now, sank at last ' under their heavy ice-load until they mostly were somewhat be- low their present hig-hts. This Champlain depression, as it is called, permitted the glacial drift of coastal regions to be cov- ered by fossiliferous marine beds, which through later re-ele- vation range up to 300 feet above the sea in Maine, 560 feet at Montreal, 300 to 400 feet from south to north in the basin of lake Champlain, 300 to 500 feet southwest of Hudson and James bays, and similar or greater altitudes on the coasts of British Columbia, the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia, Glacial melting and recession from the Iowan boundaries was rapid under the temperate (and in summers warm or hot) cHmate belonging to the more southern parts of the drift-bear- ing areas when reduced from their great preglacial elevation to their present hight or lower. The finer portion of the drift, swept down from the icefields by the abundant waters of their melting and of rains, was spread on the lower lands and along valleys in front of the departing ice, as the loess of the Missou- ri, the Mississippi, and the Rhine. Ih or just beneath the basal beds of the Missouri loess was the Lansing fossil man, belong- ing thus to the culmination or beginning of decline of the Io- wan stage of glaciation. To this time the Colurabian\ formation seems referable, succeeding the Lafayette and its erosion in our Atlantic coast region. In a Columbian gravel deposit, at Claymont, Del.', probably of a little later date than the base of the loess at Lan- sing, Mr. Hilborne T. Cresson in 1887 found an argillite im- plement, as described and figured by Prof. G. F. Wright in his works cited on a following page. M4 The American Geologist. September, i902 6. Moderate re-elevation of the land took place during the Wisconsin sta^e, in the northern United States and Canada advancing as a permanent wave from south to north and north- east. The ice border continued mainly in a wavering retreat along most of its extent, but attained its maximum advance in southern New England. This last well defined stage of the Glacial period was characterized by slight fluctuations of- the ice front and the formation of prominent marginal moraines.. Great glacial lakes were held by the barrier of the waning ice- sheet on the northern borders of the United States. At the same time the Mecklenburgian stage in E,urope was attended by the formation of conspicuous moraine accumulations at the gradually receding ice boundaries in Sweden, Denmark, Ger- many, and Finland. . It is clearly seen, from this review of the Ice age, that the Lansing skeleton and the deposition of the loess are referable to its later part, when the high land elevation that caused the growth of the vast sheets of snow and ice was succeeded by the Champlain depression, which brought the period of glaciatiqn to its end. Maji at Lansing was contemporaneous with the be- ginning of the tilling of the Missouri valley with the loe^s, p':ob- ably a few thousand years before the very remarkable rharginal moraines in Wisconsin', Iowa, Minnesota, and all our northern states, as well as in Canada, were formed on the boundaries of the departing ice-sheet. Most of the other observations of traces of men contemporaneous with glaciation in this country indicate merely an antiquity equal to that of the moraines formed during the glacial recession. Such are the cli'SCo;k^eries of stone imole- ments and the chips of their manufacture in the Late Glacial gravels of the Delaware valley at Trenton, N. J., in the. similar valley deposits of Ohio, in the ancient floodplain of the Mis- sissippi at Little Falls, Minn., in a beach ridge of the glacial Lake Agassiz in northwestern Manitoba, and the discovery of a fireplace under a beach ridge of the glacial Lake Iroquois in vvestern New York, where geologists have found traces of man's presence during the closing scenes of the Ice age. For a comprehensive review of these traces of Glacial man, the reader may) be referred to Wright's "Ice Age in North America" (188.9), and his "Man and the Glacial Period" (1892). llan in the Ice Age. — Upham. 145 ■Even these Late Glacial indications of man's existence in America, however, have been doubted in recent years by some of our ablest geologists and archaeologists, for which reason Prof. W. H. Holmes, of the U. S. National Museum, has given much attention to this subject, visiting many of the reputed lo- calities of evidences of man contemporaneous with the Ice age. His excavations and discussion of the 4ocality of abundant ar- tificially flaked quartz chips at Little Falls, Minn., led him to the conclusion that they were the work of modern Indians. But within the past year this place has been again very carefully studied by Brower and Winchell, with new excavations, leading them to refer the quartz chips to the later part of the Wisconsin stage of the Glacial period, while the waning ice-sheet yet cov- ered the ground of the headwaters of the Mississippi.* To this view I have continuously given my support from the time when these quartzes were first brought to my attention by the paper concerning them presented by Miss Franc E. Babbitt at the meeting of the American Association in Minneapolis in 1883. We owe to Prof. Winchell the first discovery twenty-five years ago, of artificial quartz chips at Little Falls referable to Ihe Glacial period, his observations there in 1877 being- published in the Sixth Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Minnesota. This was only one or two years after the earliest discoveries of stone implements in the glacial gravels of Tren- ton. Brower gives to his wprk the title. "Kakabikansing,'' which is the Ojibway word meaning Little Falls. His investigations, supplemented by aid of Prof. Winchell, seem to me to leave no room for doubt that men there, on die upper Mississippi river in central Minnesota, were contemporaneous with the accumu- lation of the great Leaf Hills moraine and with the glacial Lake Agassiz. In the appendix of this volume I contributed a short paper, entitled "Primitive Man in the Ice Age," from which I may here quote two paragraphs to give my view of the probable *Memoirs of Explorations in the Basin of the Mississippi; Volume V. Kakabikansingf, by J. V. Bkower, President of the Qaivira Historical Society, with a Contributed Section by N. H. Wi.\CHELL, President of the Geological Society of America, Councilors of the Minnesota Historical Society. Page 126; with many maps, and photographic illustrations of the quartz chips and implements. St. Paul, Minn., 1902. 146 The American Geologist. September, 1902 time and conditions of man's first coming to America, as fol- lows: The first people in America appear to have migrated to our con- tinent from northern Asia during the early Quaternary time of general uplift of northern regions which immediately preceded the Ice age, being its principal cause, and which continued through ^the early and probably the greater pait of that age. Then, land undoubtedly ex- tended across the present area of the shallow Bering sea. It is not improbable, too, that another line of very ancient immigration, coming by a similar early Quaternary land communication where now are wide tracts of the sea, passed from western Europe by the way of the Faroe islands, Iceland, and Greenland, to this continent. The very distant and dim antiquity of these migrations, however, will perhaf)S always forbid our looking back with clear and certain view, to trace their relative importance and their respective contributions' to pre- historic American industries, traffic, customs, myths, and racial char- acters An objection against migrations of primitive man to this western hemisphere during the Glacial period may be based on the ice-covered condition of North America at that time, wholly enveloped by an ice- sheet upon its northern half, northward from the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, excepting the greater part of Alaska. If the preglacial and early Glacial altitude of the continent had been the same as now, this objection would be valid, and we should be obliged to refer these an- cient migrations wholly to a time before the acfcumulation of the North American ice-sheet, which reached both east and west beyond the present coast lines. But the land elevation then, as known by old river valleys submerged beneath the sea and by marine shells of lit- tora and shallow water species dredged at great depths, was 3,000 to 8,000 feet greater than now. During the epoch of ice accumulation and culmination, its boundaries probably failed to reach generally to the coast line of that time. Along the sea border, where food supplies such as savages rely upon are most easily obtained, preglacial and 'Glacial man may have freely advanced on a land margin skirting the inland ice, as along the present borders of Greenland. It was only in the Champlain epoch, closing the Glacial period, that the ice-burdened lands sank to their present altitude or lower , bringing the edges of the ice-shfct beneath the encroaching sea. Winchell and others have computed or estimated the dura- tion of the Postglacial period as 7,000 to 10,000 years, basing their estimates on the rates of recession of waterfalls, of weath- ering and dissolving of exposed surfaces of limestone, of wave erosion and beach gravel accumulation by lakes, and of sedimentation by lakes and streams. This measure, sup- - plied by many independent observers in America and Europe, Man in the Ice Age. — Upham. 147 may be confidently accepted as the approximate duration of Postglacial rime. For the antiquity of man at Trenton and at Little Falls, it may be stated as about 7,000 years. If we should adopt the ratio given by Chamberlin, who estimates the lowan stage as five times as long ago,* it would give tjie antiquity of the Lansing fossil man as about 35,000 years, agreeing with the first newspaper estimate before mentioned. My studies of the glacial Lake Agassiz, however, warrant no longe^r time for its duration than 1,000 years, f On a similar scale, I think the time of glacial recession from the lowan stage to the north end of Lake Agassiz may be no more than 5,000 years, giving a date about 12,000 years ago for the Lansing man and the loess. Further back, I may also give my estimates of the earlier parts of the Glacial period, as about 10,000 years for the growth of the icefields during the lowan stage, before the Champlain subsidence caused them"1:o melt and supply the loess in. its chief abundance ; about 10,000 years for the pre- ceding Flelvetian or Buchanan glacial retreat, giving thus some 25,000 years before the end of the Ice age as the time of the Kansan maximum glaciation ; a previous slow ice accumulation and transportation of the Kansan glacial drifi:, that is, the Kan- san stage of the Ice age,also about 25,000 years ; the previous Aftonian stage of glacial recession, another such allowance of about 25,000 years ; and, earliest of all, the Albertan stage oi ice accumulation and formation of its drift deposits, likewise about 25,000 years. All the Ice age I would thus comprise within about 100,000 years. This estimate seems to harmonize well with the geologic time ratios of Dana, VValcott, and others, which indicate about a hundred million years as the duration of life on our globe. Man in the Sbmme valley and other parts of France, and in southern England, made good paleolithic implements fully 100,000 years ago, according to my estimate of the length of the Ice age.t When the earliest men came to America cannot probably be closely determined. It was during the Glacial per- iod, or possibly earlier. The Lansing skeleton affords probably our oldest proof of man's presence on this continent; but it is *Journal of Geology, toI. iv, pp, 872-876, Oct.-NoT.. 1896. iU. S. Gtio1. Survey, Monograph xxv, 1895, pp. 200, 210, 225, 238-244. tAai. Geologist, vol. xxii. pp. 350-362, Dec, 1898. 148 ■ The American Geologist. September, 1902 only a third, or, as I think more probably, only about an eighth, so old as the flint hatchets of St. Achetil and other localities of the old world. It will be objected, to my estimate of the antiquity of the Lansing- man, that the subaerial erosion, weathering, and var- ious other features of the Kansan, Illinoian, lowan, and Wis- consin drift deposits,' with the associated interglacial beds, ne- cessitate a much greater duration of these stages of the Glacial •period than 1 have here suggested. Instead, I would reply that the old till sheets and the loess are' spread somewhat evenly on the preglacial rock surface, all the valleys and grand topo- graphic forms of the country in the southern part of our drift area being of preglacial origin. The drift earliest eroded from the preglacial laiid was also largely the residuary clays and de- caying rock of the surface, accounting for the great contrast in composition of the more southern and the more northern drift deposits, even when of the same mode of formation and the same age. Concerning the deposition of the loess along the Missouri river and on the older drift to long distances at each side, 1 think that its derivation chiefly from the englacial and finally superglacial drift is clearly demonstrable. Swept by the sum- mer floods from the melting ice-surface, it was laid down as a deep valley drift deposit, thickening and lifting the great river on the vast floodplain until it flowed, during the hot part of each year, in a lakelike sheet of water, probably from 5 or 10 to 30 or 40 feet deep and far wider than the present bottomlands, at the general bight of the Ipess bluffs and uplands. During the cool but not wintry parts of the year, in the spring and autumn, when the floods were reduced to comparatively small channels, or sometimes throughout several years together having less plentiful melting of the ice-sheet, land vegetation and air-breath- ing mollusks could occupy the newly deposited loess tracts. But the scantiness of vegetation on areas subject to suiraiier over- flow permitted the winds to carry off much of this very fine loess and to spread it over the contiguous country in'massive swells and ridges, conforming in a general way to the previous contour. With decrease in the supply of both water and loess, when the lowan ice-melting was nearly finished, the rivers eroded deep and wide valleys in their loess plains, the valley of the Missouri Adan in Ihe Ice Age. — Uphain. 149 ranging from three to fifteen miles in width, and attaining a depth below its present bottomlands. During the Wisconsin moraine-forming stage the land was re-elevated to about its present liight. The Missouri and its tributary streams, laden with gravel, sand, and fine silt, sup- plied plentifully from the melting ice in this stage, built up again tiieir iloodplains to bights slightly above the present river bot- toms. Between Sioux City and Council Bluffs, Iowa, a distance of 90 miles, this alluvial plain of the Wisconsin modified drift is maiply 6 to 12 miles wide on thte east side of the river, a niojt fertile tract for corn-raising. The Lansing discovery gives us much definite knowledge of a Glacial man, dolichocephalic, low-browed, and progn^thoiis, having nearly the same stature as our people today. As stated by Prof. Williston, he was doubtless contemporary with the Equus fauna, well represented in the Late Pleistocene deposits of Kansas, which includes extinct species of the horse, bison, mammoth and mastodon, megalonyx, moose, camels, llamas, and peccaries. He was also the contemporary of the Late Paleolithic men of Europe, who- in the Solutrian and Mag- dalenian development of implement-making from flint and bone, and in various other manifestations of artistic skill, were far advanced beyond primitive savagery. It may be reasonably expected that many other evidences of the men of the loess-forming stage of the Ice age will be found, and wiU give som.e knowledge or hints of their mode of life. Two such items of testimony are already known in Iowa. Prof. F. M. Witter, 'superintendent of schools at Mus- catine, in a paper read before the Iowa Academy of Sciences in 1891, described "'a rather rudely formed spear point of pink- ish chert," found in the loess in that city about 12 feet from the surface, and an arrow point in the same loess section, "at least 25 feet below the surface." Both were discovered in place by Mr. Charles Freeman, the proprietor of a brickyard. Again, in volume XL of the Iowa Geological Survey, published last year, Prof. J. A. LTdden, reporting on Pottawattamir; county, writes : "In tunnelling the cellars into the loess hills back of Conrad Geisse's old brewery, on Upper Broadway in the same city [Council Blufl:'s], it is claimed that a grooved stone ax \Vas taken out from under thirty feet of loess and forty 150 The American Geologist. Septemtier, 1902 feet from the entrance of the cellar excavation. The ax has an adhering incrustation of calcareous material on one side, evidently deposited by ground water. The loess at this place has possibly been disturbed by creeping or by rain wash, but its appearance' suggests nothing of the kind. It is quite typical loess for this region. The ax was discovered by the workmen engaged in excavating the cellar' and immediately shown to Engineer Robert F. Rain, who superintended the work; and who still has possession of it." Since man is shown to have lived in this region, probably 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, with elephants and mastodons, it seems quite possible that he left some token of them in the forms of some of his mounds, or in their contents, as the much dis- cussed sandstone pipes found in Louisa county, southeastern Iowa, and owned by the Davenport Academy of Natural Sci- ences, carved to represent the elephant or mammoth of the Ice age. In Europe, at about the same time, the spirited carv- ings of the outlines of mammoths and reindeer, on their own tusks and antlers, by the Late Paleolithic men, give indtibitable evidence that they and these animals of the Glacial period subsisted together. Indeed, very probably the extinction of the mammoth, and of the horse in America before Columbu* came, may have been due to the prowess of the aboriginal hunters in killing them for their food. IFrom the American Geologist, Vol. XXX, September, 1902.'] EDITORIAL COMMENT. THE LANSING SKELETON. The article of Mr. Upham in this number of the Geol- ogist sufficiently details the facts relating to the topography and other surroundings of the place in which this skele- ton was found. It may be Avell to mention however, more in detail, some facts relating to the skeleton itself, and to the act of discoverjr. The tunnel in the excavation of which the skeleton was found was commenced in the winter of 1900 and 1901, and was about half completed that winter. It was resumed and com- pleted in the winter of 1901-1902. The human skeleton was found in February, 1902, at the distance of about 70 feet from the mouth of the tunnel and about 20 feet below the natural surface. The men are farmers and did not appreciate the signifi- cance of the discovery, breaking the skull with the pick and scattering the pieces with the rest of the skeleton, hardly taking pains to throw the fragments into a place by themsel-ves. Mr. M. C. Long and Mr. Butts, both of Kansas City, endeavored to secure the remains, and Mr. Butts purchased from the owner for a dollar and a half, the right to the lot, but a compromise was effected by which Mr. Long received the fragments of the skull and Mr. Butts received the rest. Mr. Long was instru- m,ental in bringing the skeleton to public notice and Prof. Wil- liston's article in Science, Aug. i, 1902, was the first ac- curate and trustworthy account. It is plain, therefore, that the circumstances of the initial history do not suggest any cullusion or attempt to deceive the public. The owners of the farm were subjected to close question- ing-. It should be stated that after the close of th'e examination of the spot, in the presence of the owners, there rested on the minds of the four experienced scientists present and partic- ipating not a shadow of doubt as to the veracity of the farmers Concanncn. Some of the party (including the writer) in- specting the wall of the tunnel with a small pick, about sixty feet from the entrance, for the purpose of learning its char- acter and alternations, found small bits of black charcoal near the top and two small fragments of bone adherent in the wall, igo The American Geologist. September, 1902 .near the floor of the tunnel. Others found fragments, by pull- ing over the dump heap at the mouth of the tunnel. The material penetrated by the tunnel is common loess, but throughout its lowest, 2 to 4 feet; it is very irregular. It here shows no evidence of water stratification. It is chargfed with rotting fragm'ents and slabs of the limestone of the region, but contains no foreign drift. Over this mass of non-stratified ma- terial' is a thickness of two or three feet of distinctly stratified loess. The evidences of water stratification become less and less distinct toward the roof of the tunnel, but there is no abrupt change in texture from the bottom of the stratified por- tion to the roof of the tunnel. It appears reasonable to suppose that at first the entire mass of loess was stratified, and that by the action of atmospheric forces, including vegetation, the stratified structure has been destroyed in the .upper portion. It was probably deposited by the Missouri river at a former high stage and cannot be distinguished from the great loess sheet of that valley at Kansas City. The skeleton was found, not in this alluvial loess deposit, but in the unstratified debris amongst the limestone fragments that lie below it. It is hence pre-loessian but probably not much older than the loess, since, if it had been long exposed near the natural surface prior to being covered by the loess, the skeleton would probably have been so disintegrated that the bones would not bear their own weight. The material in which the skeleton lay was apparently the sliding and rotting liinestone debris that accumulates on all limestone bluffs, and which is seen along the river bluffs at the present time where the railroad skirts them and the grade occasionally cuts into them. Professor Williston has kindly furnished the following mem- orandum of the skeleton : The preserved portions include the larger part of the skeleton: — the skull, various vertebrae, humeri, radius, carpal and finger bones, pelvic bones, femora, tibiae, fibulae, tarsal and toe bones. The femora measure seventeerj and a half inches in length, indicating a person of av- erage size. The pelvic bones have not been mended so that the sex can be determined. The skull does not appear to be much if any below the average size; it is distinctly dolichocephalic, the forehead receding, with the orbital margins prominent, and showing especially prominent supraciliary ridges. The complete mandible has lost on each side the first and second molars, with absorption of the alveolai- processes. All the other teeth ire worn to a remarkable degree, the third molars or Editorial Comment. 191 wisdom teeth are large with ^he crowns worn more than half way down, smoothly and with the surface inwardly obhque- The incisors, canine and premolars also show the same extreme wear with the in- ner, or buccal surface worn away deeply. Three teeth and three al- veolse are preserved in the maxillary bone, all the teeth much worn except the second molar which was above the diastema left by the loss ot the molars below. This tooth shows little or no trace of wear, in- dicating the loss of the lower molars at a time long prior to the death of the individual. There is no indication of the ridges above the gen- ial tubercles on the inner side of the mandible in front, said to be char- acteristic of the Homo neanderthalensis- The cranium has a remark- able resemblance to one of a mound-builder recovered from a mound near Kansas City some years ago. The two halves of the mandible appear to have been broken in two either at the time of death or after- wards, as they were found separated, if the testimony of the finders is to be relied upon ; their extremities also indicate an original separa- tion of the parts by the hard matrix attached to them. Prof. Williston also writes, Aug. 26 : From a recent examination of the Lansing bones t find that they belong to a female between five feet two inches and five feet four inches in hight. They are un- usually small, even for a female ; the forearm is unusually long ; the pelvis not very broad. The woman was not less than forty years of age. Again Prof. Williston writes, August 31, igo2: A further and careful examination of the bones of the "Lansing skeleton'' proves conclusively that there are two skeletons. The jaw found at a dis- tance (as I understand) is that of a child about 10 or 11 years ot age, as is shown by the presence of uncut canine tooth ?nd of a deciduous molar. Please, therefore, correct my statement p-^viously sent ch.it the upper first molar showed little wear, — thus indicating the removal of the lower molars at a much earlier time. This jaw (the uppei) belongs to the child. It was noticeable that there is some irreg'ularity in the size of the teeth, viz. : the canine teeth are small, resembling incisors, and are followed, backward, by two similar incisor- like teeth in place of distinct bicuspids. The important question lies in the age of the loess cover- ing the skeleton — was it of the high-water stage of the Wis- consin epoch, or of the lowan ? There was not sufficient time at hand to enable the party to go into a thorough examination of the valley with a view to determining the question with cer- tainty. There is not, in the immediate vicinity any sufficient evi- dence of the existence of terraces, whether of residuary or constructional origin, along that part of the great valley ; but at Council Bluffs, in Iowa, north of the city, is a distinct rem- 192 The American Geologist. September, 1902 nant of a terrace risin.sr about 125 feet above the river, the contents of which are loess, but at the base becoming too sandy and coarse to warrant that name. Again, between Council Bkiffs and Sioux City, as mentioned by Mr. Upham, another terrace about 20 feet above the river borders the river on the east side for many miles. The Missouri Valley Railroad is located on it. There is at hand no evidence as to the nature of this lower bench — whether it consists of drift materials or of rock, ^and if of the former whether it is a residuum of the general loess sheet due to a halting shrinkage of the Missouri from its loessian stage or to a constructural refilling subsequent to its deeper excavation. Mr. Upham regards it, at least in a tentative manner, as a constructional terrace of later date than the general loesSj and probably due to the high waters of the Wisconsin ice-sheet then existing further north. In the absence of knowledge of the nature of these terraces, either or both of which may have once existed at Lansing and at the Concannon farm, the only recourse is to accept the determinations and classification of the lowan geologists as to the origin and date of the loess covering the tomb of the Lansing man. The general loess sheet of the Missouri valley, in western Iowa and in northwestern Missouri, and in the adjacent por- tions of Nebraska and Kansas, presents such uniformity of character that it seems necessary to ascribe it to a single cause and apparently to the same date. Still Prof. J. E. Todd has suggested that* it is divisible into two parts : an tipper loess, covering the uplands, and a lower loess restricted to the valley of the river, the latter being much the younger and forming a terrace which rises about 125 to 150 feet above the present level of the river. Such terrace has already been mentioned at Council Bluffs. It is indicated on the Omaha side of the river, viewed from Council Bluffs, by the jog in the distinctness of the timber line. This terrace must have extended to Lansing and its relative date, as compared with the upland loess, plays an important part in the question of the age of the loess over-, lying the skeleton. In any case, .accepting the determinations of the geologists of Iowa, and the time-ratios of Prof. Chamberlin, the loess of the river at Lansing can be no more recent than the date of * Missouri Geological Survey, vol. x, p. 128. Editorial Comment. 193 the lowan ice-epoch, and that would make it five times the period elapsed since the final retirement of the ice. Post-glacial time has been computed in various ways, and it has been pretty nearly unanimously agreed that post-glacial time does not ex- ceed 10,000 years, and probably amounts to about 8,000 years. Accepting the lower term, the age of the Lansing man is found to be near 40,000 . years. These time-ratios, however, arc tentative, as given by Chamberlin, and may require consid- erable modification. From a study of the interglacial gorge running throu.gh the west part of the city of Minneapolis, the -vriter calculatf^d that about 15,000 years were required for its excavation by the Mississippi river.* It was supposed to have been fonned immediately prior to- the Wisconsin epoch and after the lowan. On that supposition the close of the lowan epoch was approxi- mately 23,000 years ago. If 8,000 years be added to this for the duration of the lowan (which is probably too i;mall an al- lowance) the commencement of that epoch, which may be as- sum'ed to be about co'eval with the Lansing skeleton, was about 31,000 years ago. If, however, the interglacial Mississippi gorge at Minneapolis was excavated at some earlier interglacial epoch, say the Buchanan (pre-Iowan) or the Aftonian (as suggested by Mr. Upham) it antedates the lowan loess, and cannot serve as a factor in any calculation as to the age of the Lansing skeleton. It will recjuire, therefore, considerable further and careful examination of the loess sheets of Iowa, and of their relations to the tiU-jheets, as well as the marginal features nf the till- sheets themselves, to enable anyone to fix with any certainty the age of the Lansing skeleton more exactly than is above in- dicated. That it dates from glacial time, at sonTe remote point in the complex history of that age, is about all that can be affirmed from the present state of knowledge of the drift de- posits. It remains to call attention to a newspaper story which af- firms that formerly a cemetery of the Fort Leavenworth pene- tentiary was located at or near this place, and that the skeleton is but one of numerous others that could probably be found in the immediate vicinity if sufficient exploration 'should be under- • An approximate interglacial chronometer, AM. Geol., vol. x, p. 69 and 302, 1892. 194 The American Geologist. September, 1902 taken. It is not at all likely that the four geologists whp made the recent joint examination, and who are supposed to be ex- pert in the detection of all irregularities in the ground and all such variations that would be implied in the existence of a modern burial at this place, would have failed to observe the disturbance which such a burial would have produced. Again, on the authority of Mr. Long it appears that such former burial place was at a distance of three miles from the place at which this skeleton was found. Still the same imputation can be brought against this skele- ton as against numerous other alleged human relics discovered in glacial or pre-glacial deposits, viz. : no scientist was present at the time of discovery to vouch for the fact and to verify the place and the surroundings of the skeleton. N. H. W. Tlje Americai) Geologist Wai bogua January 1, 1888| and has bean uansd monthly Binca that data. 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