The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-06-03
A STORY TOLD BY A BONE.

hCLdi VIII tHCS COlb IL hOE oAANOA
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A STORY TOLD BY A BONE.
The National Academy of Sciences has
just published two or three papers on the
bones contained in the Heminway collec-
ton in the United States Army Medical
Museum at Washington. which add little
to our knowledge of the prehistoric races
of Arizona. The bones were found in the
Salt River Valley, pear the site of the
ancient Cibola, close to the present home
of the Zuni Indians. They seem to be
coeval with the relics which have been
collected at Casa Grande on the Gila-a
ruin which appears to have been as far
advanced in decay in the time of the early
Spanish explorers as il seems to be now.
Mr.. Frank Hamilton Cushing, who was
the first to discover the ruins. gave them
the appropriate name of Los Muertos.
He noticed the analogy between the pot
terry of Los Muertos and that of the Zunis
of to-day, and came to the conclusion that
the latter were the survivors of the race
which had Inhabited Salt River Valley at
very remote period of antiquity.
The anatomical details given in the
papers now published would not interest
the public. But it is quite remarkable that
most Of the skulls found at Los MuertOs
and Cibola exhibit the peculiar bone which
from its frequent occurrence in Peruvian
skulls has been called the Inca bone. 1t
is a small triangular inter parietal bone
which is found in the back of the head;
it is hardly ever witnessed in Europe
skulls, and indeed is peculiar to these
skulls found in Arizona and to the skulls
of the ancient Peruvians. II is the opinion
Of anatomists that it could not have been
produced by artificial pressure. The in-
habitants of Cibola appear to have been
born So" Another difference in their
skeletons from the skeletons of other
Indians is that the upper arm bones of the
females are often perforated. while no
perforations are found in the arm bones
of adult males or of infants. The hole
was either made by design or was the ac-
cideDtal consequence of the pursuits the
women followed.
Summing up the result of their studies
of these bones the PSYCHOLOGISTS at Wash
ington have come to the conclusion that
the race Of which these skeletons are relics
lived at least 1000 years ago; that they
were of people of slight physique. low
stature and small cranial cavity, and that
they were akin TO the ancient Peruvians,
whose descendants were ruled by the
Incas. Pursuing their deductions the
scientists go on to affirm, at least cOnjec-
lurally, that at the time these skeletons
were laid in the grave the race to which
they belonged was on the decline. Space
forbids a recapitulation OF the data on
which this conclusion is reached Those
the arguments in the volume which has
been issued by the Government printing
office.
The theory is that at some extremely
remote period of prehistoric antiquity
race which was distinguished by the Inca
bone on the back of the head occupied
the southern portion OF the continent
from the Colorado River down. and that
in he course of centuries or cycles they
were reduced by wars and pestilences
until they were driven into a few valleys
in Arizona and the strip of habitable land
in South America between the Andes
and the sea, where they gradually per-
ished. This theory derives plausibility
from the uHnaturalness of the modern
hypothesis regarding the antiquity of
the Aztecs, Toltecs and the Central
American palace-builders. Historians
would have US believe that the latter only
date from the ninth or tenth century of
our era, the AZtecs from the thirteenth
and the Toltecs from two or three centu-
ries before that-in other words, that the
races which fi0urished in the tropical and
semi-tropical portions Of the northern con-
tinent were not much older than the
crusades. The reasons for this opinion
are summarized in the report Of the Loril-
lard expedition to Central America. 1t has
been impossible to contradict them. But
it has always seemed strange that region
which was so abundantiy capable of sus-
tanning life should not have given birth to
powerful nations until a period which
was only the other day. For thousands Of
years before the date assigned to the Aztec
invasion of Mexico high civilization pre-
vailed in Asia. Southern Europe and parts
of Africa. We do not find traces of it in
Northern Europe, but that can be ex-
planned by the arduous condition of life in
that cold and wooded region. But why
should not more genial conditions in the
central portion of this continent have led
to the same results which they produced
on the shores of the Mediterranean, in
Mesopotamia, India and China?