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this is mentioned by later critics. Boule, for example, in dismissing the toxodon femur, simply stated that the toxodon persisted in South America until fairly recent times (Boule and Vallois 1957, p. 492). But that does not invalidate Carlos Ameghino’s conclusions. Toxodons did exist in the Pliocene, and according to Ameghino, the toxodon femur he recovered at Miramar was from a Pliocene species of toxodon. This information was available to Boule, yet he did not mention it. One could therefore say that Boule’s presentation was dishonest. In order to have made a fair challenge to Ameghino, Boule should have demonstrated that Ameghino was incorrect in asserting that the femur he discovered was characteristic of a Pliocene species of toxodon.

In researching this book, we have learned that statements found in textbooks and scientific papers cannot always be trusted to give fair and accurate information about key discoveries. One quickly discovers that apparently objective statements reflect personal bias and prejudice and are often deliberately misleading. Nevertheless, Boule was not guilty of one of the most effective techniques for dealing with disconcerting evidence—complete omission.

Concerning the toxodon discovery at Miramar, we again emphasize that the bones of an entire leg were found articulated (in their natural relative positions) in the Late Pliocene Chapadmalalan formation. This indicates that the animal died in the Late Pliocene and that its bones were incorporated into the formation at that time. If the bones of a toxodon from a much later period had somehow been washed into the Chapadmalalan, one would not expect them to have been articulated.

Carlos Ameghino (1915, p. 445) then described the stone point found embedded in the femur: “This is a flake of quartzite obtained by percussion, a single blow, and retouched along its lateral edges, but only on one surface, and afterward pointed at its two extremities by the same process of retouch, giving it a form approximating a willow leaf, therefore resembling the double points of the Solutrean type, which have been designated feuille de saule. . . . by all these details we can recognize that we are confronted with a point of the Mousterian type of the European Paleolithic period.” That such a point should be found in a formation dating back as much as 3 million years provokes serious questions about the version of human evolution presented by the modern scientific establishment, which holds that 3 million years ago we should find only the most primitive australopithecines at the vanguard of the hominid line.

Near the end of his discussion about the discovery at Miramar of the projectile point embedded in the toxodon femur, Carlos Ameghino (1915, p. 447) made some statements about Ales Hrdlicka, who, as we have seen, had attempted to demolish the work of Florentino Ameghino: “We cannot remain silent about the book recently published in this connection by Ales Hrdlicka and his collaborators (Early Man in South America, Washington, 1912). This work, apparently impartial and conscientious, serves, on the contrary, to reveal, especially in reference to the evidence for fossil man in this part of the Americas, the preconceived ideas of its authors. The authors did not spend in the terrain itself the time materially necessary to arrive at any judgement, as we had a chance to personally observe, since we accompanied them on many excursions. Without ignoring any part of the truth that this work may contain, we are convinced the conclusions of Hrdlicka are completely exaggerated. And the main proof of this is the report of the commission of geologists [Section 5.2.1].” The weight of evidence suggests Carlos Ameghino’s statements about Hrdlicka’s book are fully warranted.

Carlos Ameghino (1915, p. 449), in concluding his report on the projectile point found in the Miramar toxodon femur, stated that “at least since the Chapadmalalan, that is, the Late Miocene [Late Pliocene say modern authorities], there have existed in this territory humans of the type Homo sapiens, who,