Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-14
CONTINUED From First page.l

8nGQuiCy nave come through discoveries
made in an area which may be loosely
termed Southwestern" Gypsum Cave
Is at the western end of the territory.
Thus, at Folsom, NJ Mex, there were
found the beautifully made Jasper ar
rowheads or dart points shot into now
extinct bison in a great communal hunt
which Barnum Brown. of the American
Museum Of Natural History is con-
WINGED occurred from $4,000 to $1,000
years ago. In the same State lies Bish-
ops Cap Mountain, where was found,
in association with the remains of the
little ground sloth, the bone of a man
who Director Bryan of the Los Angeles
Museum. thinks, was walking this earth
perhaps as much as $4,000 years ago.
In Oklahoma is the gravel bed in which
were found arrowheads which Geolo-
gist Harold Cook thinks have been rest
ing in that bed for untold ages.
Antiquity Severely Questioned.
However. the alleged antiquity Of
these last finds has been severely ques-
toned by many scientists, and there
Is always the need to be alert for the
possibility that an isolated bone or ar
tifact of comparatively recent age may
have found its way-by erosion or other
accidental force-into a much older
geological stratum. One reason we can
be so certain about the antiquity of
Neanderthal man is that remains of en-
tire camp sites, rather than merely
one or two bones or artifacts have been
recovered at levels under conditions
which leave virtually no doubt of their
original deposition there
The strength Of Mr.. Harrington's dis
coveries in Gypsum Cave is that not
but 900 articles made by man we're
found in that cavern under the re-
mains Of the extinct sloth (Nothro-
therium Shastense Sinclair and. last
but not least under a layer of fossil
lied sloth manure, the ashes of what
Mr.. Harrington and other experts of
the museum are convinced was a
campfire Of the human hunters.
An archeologist is, after all. sort
Of detective, a detective specializing on
very cold trails" writes Mr. Harrington,
summarizing his work in Gypsum Cave
for the Southwest Museum. His bust
ness is to trace the footsteps of man
who lived two or three thousand years
ago or more, and make a careful record
Of his life and habits-a job, by the
way, that requires the deductive power
of a Sherlock Holmes If the story I'M
covered is to be at all lifelike! :.
In Gypsum Cave, near Las Vegas,
New, we have had a real detective
problem, for in this case there was a
suspicion Of murder.
mere we nave Cue family OF Ola MI.
Ground Sloth living peacefully n an
ancient ancestral home. Suddenly
their life in the cave came to an end,
and we soon found enough of their
bones to show that death, not removal,
was the cause.
Now, in the same cave we found a
lot Of things made by Mr.. Man. about
e5 per cent of them weapons, and the
suspicion was strong from the begin
saH- AkAk 4
with the demise of the sloth family.
1T makes no difference that the
eloth family have been deceased 10000
or maybe 10000 years and that the
alleged murderer was gathered to his
fathers before Egypt or .Babylonia,
Greece or Rome had pipped the she'll
It's our job to gather the evidence In
the case, and TO find out first of all
whether man ever visited the cave in
simply wandered in some thousands Of
years later.
Killing Must BE Proved.
THE next step, Of course, would be
actually to prove the killing; but If we
can show that Mr.. Man even met Mr..
Sloth. little additional proof is neces-
sary, for man has always had q very
bad reputation for assisting his neigh
great hereafter"
Mr.. Harrington found that the stones
near the mouth of the cave had been
worn as smooth as glass by generations
upon generations of sloths dragging
their huge hairy bodies over them. The
sloth was q clumsy creature. nearly as
big as an elephant. Rearing on his
hind legs and powerful tail, he could
chew the top foliage of fair sized
tree.
Gypsum Cave. 800 feet long BY 100
feet wide, contains five divisions or
rooms" and in each Of these Mr.
Harrington and his associates found
evidence indicating the murder Of the
sloths by hardy primitive man at least
10000 years ago, and possibly much
further back than that, for the Pleis-
tocene era is supposed to have lasted
about million years. One of the most
interesting things about Gypsum Cave
Is that II seems TO tell by what archie
ologists called qualification" a tale
OF other and later races than the peo-
pie which lived on the sloth.
In room l." declares Mr.. HarrinR-
ton. while we have traces Of Pueblo
Indians near the surface and Of the
Basket Makers, who are supposed to
have lived about 1900 BIC. directly
below them, one has to dig down
OF more than eight feet to find any
sign Of the sloths. In one layer at that
depth, however, we found not only a
considerable amount of sloth manure.
but also some charcoal and a piece of
wood that had undoubtedly been
shaped by the hand Of man
In room the evidence was even
better. because here We found beneath
. deeply buried layer Of matted sticks
containing sloth manure. and at a
depth Of from eight to ten feet from
the surface, some fragments of painted
dart shafts, such as were used by the
earliest known human Inhabitants of
America in hunting and In war-a
piece OF evidence very hard indeed to
dispute"
Room 8 yielded some flint points for
similar darts under the skull Of sloth.
And room 4, which contained more
bones Of the murdered parties than
any other chamber Of the cavern, also
gave up flint dart point between two
layers OF sloth manure. In this room
also we're found the bones of a camel
smaller and more delicate than any
camel now roaming the earth BY the
way, remains Of another type of camel
were found elsewhere in the cave. and
DR.. Chester Stock, paleontologist of the
California Institute of Technology
thinks that one Of these camels OF
Gypsum Cave belonged to a Pleistocene
species heretofore unrecorded
Remains Of Torch Are Discovered.
Room disclosed two burned pieces
Of arrow-cane N(remains of torch used
by mani in close association with the
bones Of q baby sloth whose flesh was
doubtless particularly succulent to the
palate Of those grim cavemen OF early
America.
But 1t was the later discovery of the
charcoal and ashes of the campfire
xv1HlrH eaAyV1Ad IN roee