Show SEE SEEM AN ANCIENT BONES DUG UT OF GYPSUM ghe As visitors stand in cave workmen that moment uncover bones of a prehistoric animal extinct for years I 1 and remains of human occupation in lowest lowet strata of cave lead scientists to believe that man was contemporaneous bilth the ancient animal A very wonderful find 88 DATE OF MAN IN AMERICA BEING SLOWLY PUSHED BACK by charles kelly for a year past the newspapers have been reporting curious finds in gyp um cave in nevada bones of animals extinct tor for thousands of years were said to have been found there fires had been built by hu man hands it was said even before the coming of the strange prehistory stor ic beasts flints and weapons were reported front from deep deposits in the cave left there by some primitive man thousands of years before the coming of the oldest known bas ket makers all these reports were so astound ing that they were classed with the numerous myths which creep into the newspapers from time to time never to be heard of again yet t the e reports from the cave were credited to dr M R harrington of the south west museum of los angeles a man of unquestioned reputation and scientific attainments it reports were true dr harrington had made one of the most remarkable romar klable discoveries in america but the reported finds were of such an unusual character that the stories sounded highly im probable last month dr julian steward archeologist tor for the university of utah made a visit to gypsum cave for the purpose of studying the de posits there in le relation lation to tot his recent finds in promontory cave and else where in utah and it was my good furtune to be invited to accompany him as a guest the trip proved to be much more interesting than we had anticipated and we were lucky enough to arrive just in time to see one of the important finds being removed in a lifetime of exploring one might not again see what we saw there and tor for that reason the journey was a memorable event location of the cave basy ot of access by bv auto gypsum cave Is situated on the side of a small mounta ain aln near the road toad to boulder dam 18 miles from las vegas and can be easily reach dj by automobile dr harrington began excavation just a year ago and had built a comfortable camp on the bench just below the cave for the work of excavation he employs a crew of indians some of whom have been with him tor for many years two experienced minars are alaa employ ed as there la Is considerable danger from rock slides and falling rocks the weather at this season of the year Is warm ind pleasant but last summer the work was discontinued tor for a time on account of the extreme heat dr harrington had visited gyp sum cave several times while ecca bating the lost city ot of nevada near st thomas he found alt the toms of the cave littered with ma berfal abandoned by the basket makers an eaily people who lived before the cliff dwellers this ma aerial was not now to science and did not seem to justify further study one feature of the place however was unique below the surface was a distinct layer of the dung of some animal who had haa occupied the cave tor for a long period this deposit corn com plemely covered several lot of the rooms nearest the opening but it waa was de different from anything dr harrington had seen before and he could not the animal to which it belonged each time he visited the place he became more puzzled eventually when he had completed his work at lost city he decided decide idl to get to the bottom of the deposits and discover it possible the meaning of the riddle cave was lair of extinct ground sloth bong long ago last january work was begun and a shaft sunk to the bottom of the de do posits it was not long until the workmen uncovered the bones ot of the giant ground sloth an animal which ASA ar scientists declare haa has been extinct tor for 20 years As they went down they found five layers of this mater lal ial and in each they found remains of the sloth previous to this dis covery the bones of the sloth had been found in one place only in the united states and in one place in brazil both within recent years here in gypsum cave however be sides finding the actual bones of the animal they also found large masses of its hair and small patches of hide the giant ground sloth had apparently antly developed in prehistoric times to fluch such a large fize that it could no longer live in trees it had taken to traveling on the ground but it still retained its peculiarly characteristic claws which were found frequently in the cave deposits together with skulls and various other parts of the skeletons the front claws were us bally about elx six inches long such weapons must have made the sloth a fearsome antagonist and he was probably able to hold his own in any kind ot of combat the living animal waa was covered with a heavy coat of hair of a reddish tan color this animal fed almost exclusive ly on yucca or possibly some extinct variety of small palm which may once have been native to nevada the sloth was almost the size of i t horse but its teeth were very poor ly developed and he swallowed most ot 01 his food with very little lastica tion at the time he occupied the cave the weather conditions must have been decidedly different from the present as it would take an enormous norr amount of vegetation to teed feed the large number of animals which evidently lived there at that time find 8 skin with reddish hair still clinging to it iti while we were at the cave the jaw bone ribs and several other bonea bones of a sloth were discovered dd to gether with the largest single mass of hair yet found and we saw these being removed from the rock slide where the animal had been trapped perhaps 20 years ago these bones were not petrified but were in their natural state and quite well preserved As its name suggests 0 the cave Is full of gypsum great crystals hanging from the root roof anu and tons of the same material trampled under foot preserving the bonee bones im bedded therein had used cave as habitation man of the long long ago the discovery of sloth bones in thia this cave was startling enough to ba be sure as they had never been found but once before in north america put a still more startling discovery was yet to be made in a test hole sunk td to the bottom ol 01 the cave dr harrington FOUND CHARCOAL ASHES FLINT KNIVES and painted shafts underneath the fifth andl and lowest layer of sloth remains remaIn st this was entirely unexpected as it was not thought that man lived long enough ago to have seen the ground sloth but the implements made by human hands and the charcoal from fires which could only have beba a kindled by men prove positively that the human habitation of this continent runs back thousands of 0 years earlier than has heretofore hereto forai been suspected aa As stated in the beginning suck such discoveries sounded too tar far fetched to be more than newspaper gossip but dr harrington had foreseen foresee such skepticism and had therefore left one part of the cave unexcavated showing the stratification from top to bottom underneath the earliest layer of sloth remains dr toward and I 1 picked up charcoal and ashes which had not been disturbed since the great sloth first entered the cave the evidence Is conclusive and there Is no longer room tor for doubt this ma ila have been 20 1 tears ears ago dr harrignton Is naturally conservative serva tive in his estimate of the age of these human artifacts but from the study of the stratification he believes that they are not less than 10 years old with the pro probably babil ity that by future study they will be found very much older he thinks it possible that 0 years may not be an exaggeration in estimating the age of the ear liest human occupation in thia this sec see ton science e ence Is now aided by the remarkable finds of dr steward in promontory cave where it was brov en that man lived immediately after the water of old lake bonneville had sufficiently subsided to leave the cave above ane water line while thia this does not give a definite date in years it does give a definite geology ical date something which has nut not been done elsewhere when black mountain at boul der dam erupted and filled the chan nel of the colorado river with lava it formed a large lake which proba bly submerged gypsum cave at af ter thousands of years the river e boded a channel through the lava the balance evaporated leaving the gypsum crystallized in the depths of the cave several thousand years probably elapsed before the first man and the first sloth inhabited the place in the meantime however other animals had made their home there and it was the deposits in these ear liest levels which furnished the gr greatest eanest not even dr har ington waa was prepared tor for what he found it is well koewn that the horse developed on the american contin ent and fossil bones ot of the horse have been found showing Us its corn com evolution from earliest times there was also at the same time A merican camels of several different species both the horse and the camel became extinct on the amer lean ican continent before the coming of man as is proven by the tact fact that no bones of either animal have ever been found in any dwelling dwelli ngor mound ormound left by primitive man ocene horse wag was there and three kinds 3 ot of camels yet in the bottom ot of gypsum cave tor for below the earliest bones ol 01 the ground sloth dr harrington found the bones of the american horse and three varieties of camel of different sizes the horse bonea bones were from an individual about the size of a small indian pony and were very si to the modern ing nearly identical but smaller these animals had either lived in the cave before its entrance became choked up with rock slides or their bones may have been dragged in b by y bears or possibly the saber tooth tl it ger there were no horse or camel bones above the first lawer of sloth remains they became extinct long ago this is the first instance in which such bones have been found except in fossil form and indicates that the american horse and camel existed into more recent times than had pro pre been supposed possibly aa as late as the last glacial advance 25 00 60 50 yeara years ago 11 sheep today ube like they were SO 20 years ago interesting also Is the fact not known before that the mountain sheep has existed in its present form from earliest times its skulls and an horns have been found in gypsum cave in every strata from the ear liest to the latest and the horn horse in construction the teeth be cases eases of the sheep of 20 yeara years ago tit fit th the e skulls found on the mountain above the cave in other words the mountain sheep was so perfectly adapted to its denvir that it existed exist eld continuously in the same locality since the days ot of the american horse and camel and outlived all its who long ago vanished from the face of the continent the palen otology of the cave la is under the direction of mr jamea james thurston supervised by dr stoc stock k ot of the california institute ot of ogy agy the finds in gypsum cave are in some ways moire more important than those in the la brea tar pits in cal ifo ania since in the tar pits there la IS no stratification and modern Is mix ted bd with ancient in the cave each has its own distinct level slay never get another experience bike like it our stay at gypsum cave was a most pleasant experience besides being of greatest scientific value in another month he work will be corn com plated and unless a similar place la is found it will dever again agan be possible tor for us to run our lingers fingers through the thick hair of an animal which haa has been extinct for no one knows how I 1 many thousand years dr steward plans next summer to III number of sites which give promise of much late material it may even be possible to find sloth bones somewhere in utah but it Is more than likely that such important finds will not be made more than once in a lifetime slowly but surely man Is being pushed farther and nud farther back into the adim ages of the past |