OLDEST REMAINS OF MAN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIV, Issue LIV, 15 June 1920, Page 1

OLDEST REMAINS OF MAN

( Dr. Ameghino, director of the Bunnos Aires Museum (says r ihe Times) eiaims that lie has just discovered the oldest remains of man yet known. Previous exploration of the ravines of Chapalmalal and Miramar had levealed important deposits of the Stone Age. such as polished stone balls, firestones, calcined bones, baked-clay vessels, weights for fishing nets made of stone or of the bones of huge mammals, flint knives, rasps, fossilised bones of enormous animals of the tertiary age, like the zoxodon, together with the qmfrtzite arroiv and spear heads, curiously wrought, with which primitive man' hunted them; and these finds had encouraged the belief that one day the bones of the men who fashioned them would also, be found. This, it is reported, has nowbeen accomplished. From a telegram sent by the naturalist in charge of the excavations Dr. Ameghino learned recently that at the base of. the ravine wail on which work was pro coeding several bones and . other objects had been brought to light, and on his arrival at ..the. site he was able to establish the accuracy of his conjectures. The new finds consisted of a stone fireplace of the tertiary ago and a fragment of human jaw with two molars. Study of the morphology and fossilisation of the ■' remaips proves, it is said, that they belong to a typo of man far older than the oldest hitherto discovered.