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By Root 1497 0

between Placerville Creek and Big Cañon, and is capped with a stratum of basaltic lava, some eight feet thick. Beneath this there are some thirty feet of sand, gravel, and clay. The country-rock is slightly capped on this, as on most of the elevations, the slope being towards the centre of the hill. Resting on the rock and extending about two feet above it, was a dense stratum of clay. It was in this clay that we came across the bones. While emptying the tub, I saw some pieces of material which on examination I discovered were pieces of bones; and, on further search, I found the scapula, clavicle, and parts of the first, second, and third ribs of the right side of a human skeleton. They were quite firmly cemented together; but on exposure to the air began to crumble. We made no further discoveries.” According to Whitney (1880, p. 276), Boyce “stated there could be no mistake about the character of the bones, and that he had made a special study of human anatomy.”

Sinclair (1908, p. 123) reported that he examined Clay Hill in 1902 and found “no basalt capping appeared either on the hill or anywhere in the vicinity.” He did, however, note the presence of “a small area of andesitic breccia on the top of the hill” (Sinclair 1908, p. 123). Both andesite and basalt are dark greyish volcanic rocks; thus it is possible that Boyce, not a trained geologist, may have mistaken the andesite for basalt. Whitney (1880, p. 276) said that Boyce’s “description of the geology of Clay Hill agrees, in the main, with that given by Mr. Goodyear, who states that the deposit on the bed-rock was from twentyfive to thirty feet thick, all but the lower five feet consisting of ‘mountain gravel’, a local name for the volcanic material capping the hills in that vicinity.”

According to the United States Geological Survey Map made by W. Lindgren and H. Turner in July 1893, the andesitic deposits on the top of Clay Hill are Pliocene or Miocene in age—therefore the stratum in which the human bones were found must be at least as old.

But Sinclair persistently attempted to cast whatever doubt he could on the discovery. He said he could not locate the clay stratum said to have contained the bones “owing to the heavy talus slopes” (Sinclair 1908, p. 123). He further stated: “The impression conveyed . . . is that the skeleton found by Dr. Boyce was at a depth of thirty-eight feet, in undisturbed strata under eight feet of so-called basalt. There is nothing, however, in the letter to show that this was the section passed through in sinking the Boyce shaft” (Sinclair 1908, p. 123). Because of the ambiguity about the exact location of the shaft, Sinclair thus concluded (1908, p. 123): “The skeleton may have been found in such a place and at such a depth in the clay that the possibility of recent interment would have to be considered. As the evidence is presented, we are not justified in regarding the skeleton from Clay Hill as of great antiquity.”

The points raised by Sinclair are valid, and we agree that there are reasons to doubt the antiquity of the skeletal remains found at Clay Hill. Yet the presence of heavy talus slopes, with so much rock that Sinclair was not able to gain access to the stratum of clay at the base of the hill, seems to argue against, rather than for, the possibility of a recent burial into the clay from the slope of the hill. Also, if there were a recent burial, it is peculiar that so few bones were recovered.

This brings us to the end of our review of fossil human skeletal remains from the auriferous gravels of California. Despite the imperfections of the evidence, one thing is certain—human bones were found in the Tertiary gravels, dating as far back as the Eocene. How the bones got there is open to question. The reports of the discoveries are sometimes vague and inconclusive, yet they are suggestive of something other than pranks by miners or recent intrusive burials by Indians. The presence of numerous stone tools, incontestably of human manufacture, in the same formations, lends additional credibility to the finds.

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