Ancient Bones

The Marietta Intelligencer, November 16, 1859

Workmen in excavating a location for a cistern at Skinner, Rolston & Co.'s Tannery, after passing down through six feet of sandy loam and through three feet of conglomerate rock, so hard as to require blasting, found under the conglomerate, a cavity about a foot in depth, and in the earth below this cavity, a human skeleton and the bones of animals. The bones were very old and crumbling. The skull of the skeleton, the most precious part to the ethnologist, was broken to pieces by a blow of a pick. A part of the upper jaw contained teeth, which were very much worn. They have doubtless seen much service and, consequently, the owner, many years.

It is somewhat difficult to account for the location of the bones. The conglomerate and accompanying sand appear to be a part of the original strata of the stockade terrace and if so are, in the estimation of geologists, older than the human race. It is probable, however, that water once flowed down a small ravine near the spot and excavated a hole under the hardened conglomerate stratum, and the bones were carried there by animals, or drifted under the shelving rock, and afterwards the earth was deposited over the whole. The opening where the bones were found is near the edge of the plain, about six hundred feet from the present bank of the Muskingum River, and about fifteen to twenty feet below the general level of the plain. The bones are in possession of Dr. Hildreth.

If Nott, the author of "Types of Mankind," were to see these bones he would give them as another example of a Pre-Adamic man, and in our opinion, make another great mistake.