the district, and have been shaped by the ordinary processes employed by our aborigines. They evidently served purposes identical with corresponding implements of our Indian tribes.
(7) None of these objects show evidence of unusual age, and none bear traces of the wear and tear that would come from transportation in Tertiary torrents. These striking facts relating to the condition of the human remains confirm and enforce the impressions received from a study of the geological and biological history of the region.
(8) The case against antiquity is strengthened again by a study of the recent history of California. All the phenomena relied upon to prove antiquity can be accounted for without assuming a Tertiary man. Indian tribes have occupied the region for centuries. They buried their dead in pits, caves, and deep ravines where the remains were readily covered by accumulations of debris or of calcareous matter deposited by water. As soon as mining operations began the region became noted as a "place of skulls" (Calaveras).
(9) Coupled with the above is the fact that no other country in the world has been so extensively and profoundly dug over as this same Auriferous Gravel region. The miners worked out the ossuaries and, at the same time, undermined the village sites, and thousands of the native implements and utensils were introduced into the mines and became intermingled with the gravels. Implements and utensils may also have been introduced into the deep mines by their owners who were helpers in the mining work.
(10) When these objects began to be observed by the miners, individuals interested in relics commenced to make collections, but neither miners nor collectors understood the need of discrimination, the fact that the objects came from the mines being satisfactory evidence to them that they belonged originally in the gravels.
(11) Again, it is possible that deception was often practiced.
