UNEARTHED AN ANCIENT TOMB
An Interesting Discovery at the Oakland Race Track.
QUEER INDIAN SKULLS.
Their Remarkable Formation Interests Professor Meriam of Berkeley.
ONE THOUSAND YEARS OLD.
President Williams' Museum of Ancient Anatomy at the California Jockey Club.
The Oakland racetrack is at the present moment a happy hunting ground for enthusiastic archeologists, a state of affairs directly due to a most important discovery recently made in that locality. This is nothing less than an unusually fruitful specimen of what is commonly termed the shell-mound or kitchen midden, now generally admitted to be the burial ground of presumably autochthorous Indian tribes long ago extinct. Mounds of this description have frequently been found in many parts of California, and in fact all along the Pacific Coast, but in this particular instance the discovery referred to is of such a character as to suggest to the eye of an expert much greater antiquity than the average type.
This opinion is held by Professor Meriam of the Berkeley University among others. He was notified of the find without delay, and has secured two skulls for examination and preservation in the university museum.
About a week ago George Bleasdale, who is the foreman of the work of improvement now in progress on the Oakland racetrack, began to level the mound in question in order to prepare a site for the new stables, and also to obtain earth to fill up another portion of the track. Hardly had the workmen begun to dig than one of them, more fortunate than the rest, like the gravediggers in "Hamlet," suddenly unearthed a skull,
Thomas H. Williams, president of the California Jockey Club, and A. M. Allen, superintendent of the work, soon heard of the occurrence and immediately visited the scene of the discovery. Both gentlemen seemingly take keen interest in the abstruse subject of shell mounds, and eagerly determined to thoroughly investigate the nature of this particular sample of the species. A hole was accordingly dug some six feet in depth and not more than seven feet in diameter, and within this comparatively small space fully eight skulls in a more or less perfect state of preservation were brought to light, as well as a large quantity of bones from other portions of the human frame, as for example bits of the spinal column, hip and thigh bones.
The whole of the mound is otherwise composed of clam, mussel and oyster shells in a state of decomposition and is estimated to be at least 200 yards in diameter.
Skull of Strange Conformation Discovered in a Berkeley Shell Mound. |
One marked peculiarity of all the skulls which have thus far been unearthed is the peculiar formation of their upper portion above the eye-sockets. As will be seen from the accompanying sketch the owner's head must have been entirely devoid. of what moderns call the forehead and that it recedes abruptly, thus indicating an extremely low order of intelligence.
Moreover, the occipital parts are of enormous thickness and scarcely calculated to be easily broken in time of war, which, from the point of view of their happy possessor, was, no doubt, a distinct advantage..
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