. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution . FlG. Charging mammoth ; after Liibliock. 654 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. moth {Elephas primigenius) and mastodon {Mammiit aTnericanum)and numerous other animal remains, such as the bison and prehistorichorses. In the spring there ^yere also found numerous implementsof flint, mainly arrowheads. This naturally was first interpreted asan instance of actual association of mankind and the elephants, butcareful investigation proved that the elephant remains far antedatedthe human relics, and that the latter wer
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution . FlG. Charging mammoth ; after Liibliock. 654 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. moth {Elephas primigenius) and mastodon {Mammiit aTnericanum)and numerous other animal remains, such as the bison and prehistorichorses. In the spring there ^yere also found numerous implementsof flint, mainly arrowheads. This naturally was first interpreted asan instance of actual association of mankind and the elephants, butcareful investigation proved that the elephant remains far antedatedthe human relics, and that the latter were votive offerings cast intothe spring by recent Indians as a sacrifice to the spirit occupant,the bones being venerated as those of their ancestors (Holmes).Another instance, not of the association of the mammoth with man-kind, but of the mastodon, is probably authentic. This Avas in Attica,New York, and is reported by Prof. J. M. Clarke. Four feet below. Fig. 9.—Prehistoric engraving of mammoth on wall at Combarelles; after MacCurdy. One-sixth natural size. the surface of the ground, in a black muck, he found the bones of themastodon, and 12 inches below this, in undisturbed clay, pieces ofpottery and 30 fragments of charcoal (Wright). The remains of themastodons and mammoths are very abundant in places, the Oklahomaspring already mentioned producing 100 mastodon and 20 mammothteeth, while the famous Big Bone Lick in Kentucky has producedthe remains of an equal number of fossil mastodons and elephants. Indian tradition points but vaguely to the proboscidians, and onecan not be sure that they are the creatures referred to, yet it wouldbe strange if such keen observers of nature as the American aboriginesshould not have some tales of the mammoth and mastodon if theirforefathers had seen them alive. One tradition of the Shawnee EVOLUTION OF THE ELEPHANT LULL. 655 Indians seems to allude to the mastodon, especially as its teeth led thee
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