PROCEEDINGSOF THE

NATIONALACADEMY OF SCIENCESVolume 19 January 15, 1933 Number 1

MINNESOTA PLEISTOCENE HOMOANINTERIM COMMUNICATION

BY ALBERT ERNEST JENKSDEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Read before the Academy, Wednesday, November 16, 1932

An area in North America about 1500 miles in diameter, of whichMinnesota may well be taken as the center, has for several years jointlyinterested three departments of the University of Minnesota, namely:those of Anthropology, Botany and Geology. Interest centers primarilyaround the factors inherent in this area which seem to have been favorablefor catching up and holding Glacial-Age man.We have long believed man was in America before the close of the Glacial

Age. The recent finding of so many members of the early Pleistocenegenus, the new generalized Sinanthropus pekinensis, relatively so nearthe one-time ancient land bridge and so near the constant short waterroute between northeastern Asia and northwestern America has broughtnew stimulation to expectant open-minded students of glacial time inAmerica.

Mindful of the existence and habitable conditions of the extensivedriftless area lying in the adjoining states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowaand Illinois, we have been on constant lookout for evidence of Glacial-Man in Minnesota.

In pursuit of that end, a letter was written May 8, 1931, to Mr. C. M.Babcock, Commissioner of the Minnesota State Department of Highways,suggesting cooperation of Mr. Babcock's department with the Universityin the matter of reporting possible sub-surface discovery of human oranimal bones, artifacts, or pieces of wood in the many cuts being madeabout the state during an extensive program of modern road building.

In response to this letter, on June 18, 1931, Mr. P. F. Stary, StateHighway Maintenance Superintendent, stationed at Detroit Lakes,Becker county, phoned me that one of his road crews had found a humanskeleton beneath the surface of a highway, south of Detroit Lakes. Heasked if I could come up to investigate. As I was due to leave the Uni-versity at once for summer archaeological work in New Mexico, I arranged

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with Mr. Stary to receive my colleague, Dr. Clinton R. Stauffer, geologist,and to deliver the skeleton to him. Dr. Stauffer visited the site on June20 and 21, and brought the skeleton to my laboratory. Work in the fieldfor the autumn quarter and full-time University work on my return pre-vented systematic study of the skeletal material until spring vacationbeginning March 21, since which date time almost daily has been givento the study. The site of the find has also twice been redug, and I haveobtained from the men present when the skeleton was found as completea story as possible of its recovery. We have this story in detail, but Ishall have time here for only a brief synopsis.

In June, 1931, on Minnesota Highway number 30, some three milesnorth of Pelican Rapids, in Pelican township of Ottertail county, a main-tenance crew working under Mr. P. F. Stary was cutting into the road-bedto lay drainage tiles the full length of a 600-foot frost boil. For an under-standing of the story of the find, we must here note that this work was ina new section of the highway built in 1930 which cuts across an extinctglacial lake, the existence of which was first published by Dr. FrankLeverett in 1914. Horizontal laminated layers of the silt which filledthis lake lie exposed abundantly in the long stretches of cuts made forthis roadway. At Dr. Leverett's suggestion, we have named this lake"Glacial Lake Pelican."A modern road grader hauled by a tractor dug into and through the

highway surface from both its shoulders to its middle, making a shallowV-shaped cut the width of the twenty-eight foot oiled surface of the road-bed and two feet deep at the middle below the oiled surface. Mr. CarlSteffen was follwving the grader, when, early in the morning of June 16,the lower end oi the blade, then making its lowest cut in the middle ofthe road-bed, exposed something white and shimmering in the yellowishgray silt. His attention was so arrested by the occurrence that he calledMr. Byron Doherty, operator of the tractor, to stop the grader. Mr.Steffen soon discovered that the foreign shimmering material was "clamshell crushed by the grader" blade. As he, with his fingers, cleared thesilt away in which he found the shell fragments, he exposed the face ofa human skull lying beneath the fragments. He then called Mr. ClarenceWright, the road boss. Messrs. Wright, Steffen and Doherty next sawpartially exposed on the smooth-sheared surface of the silt what theythought was a piece of bone. This proved to be a broken dagger of antler.Within the next hour after the skull was exposed, the skeleton was dug

out, mainly by Messrs. Steffen and Eugene Russell, and removed to theside of the road. Seven men, members of the maintenance crew workingon the frost boil, saw the skeleton in place while it was being dug out.They are: Carl Steffen and Byron Doherty whose part in the find hasbeen told; Clarence Johnson, Carl Olson and Fred Sellman, truck drivers

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Left Profile View "Minnesota Man" on Frankfort Plane.

Front View "Minnesota Man" on Occipital View "Minnesota Man" onFrankfort Plane. Frankfort Plane.

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hauling gravel to fill the excavated road-bed; Eugene Russell, truck dumpman at the filling; and Clarence Wright, road boss on the job, who saw theskeleton from first to last and whose diary entry of that day fortunatelydocuments the important discovery.

All men present agree that the skeleton lay on its left side with thehead a little south of east. The face was turned somewhat upward sothe right part of the frontal was uppermost in the silt. The legs werebent-slightly backward at the knees. The upper legs were just noticeablyflexed forward at the pelvis. The right arm was bent at the elbow so theforearm lay in front of the vertebral column while the upper arm was ontop of the ribs and vertebrae. The left arm was beneath the ribs and waspractically straight beneath or close in front of the body. A shell pendantwas found with the skeleton among the ribs and vertebrae in the abdominalarea. This pendant may have been hung from the neck, but I am of theopinion that it was attached to the girdle, perhaps as a pubic apron.There was no evidence about the skeleton that it was originally buried byman.The cut at the spot where the skeleton was found is 7 feet and 6 inches

deep from the old ground surface to the finished road-bed. The contourmaps of this new section of the highway prepared by State Engineersbefore road grading began positively determine the sub-surface depth ofthe road-bed. The section of the road-bed beneath which the skeletonwas found at a depth of 2 feet and 3 inches had not been disturbed by theoriginal road builders in 1930.1Mr. Wright told me that when he came to the spot where the skull was

exposed by Mr. Steffen, he at once noticed and spoke of the smooth layersof silt lying from the middle of the road, where the grader had cut deepest,to the shoulder of the road, where the cutting began. The layers wereexposed on the new sloping cut in the road-bed somewhat suggestingcourses of shingles on a shed roof. Messrs. Doherty, Johnson, Steffenand Wright told me individually and together that they all saw the un-disturbed layers of silt from beneath which the skeleton was later taken.All four of the men also told me that they talked of the skeleton at thetime as probably that of "an old Indian" because it was found so deepin the earth.Mr. Stary, coming down from Detroit Lakes, the morning of June 17,

saw the skeleton by the roadside where it had lain since first recovered,and saying, "It is probably very important," ordered it taken to Head-quarters' Camp, where it was later secured by Dr. Stauffer.The first confirmation of the source of the skeleton was had May 7,

1932, when during several hours of cold, drenching rain, the reported site wasredug for identification in the constant presence of Dr. Stauffer and myself.This redigging was done primarily by Mr. Steffen. Doctors George A.

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Thiel, geologist, and Frederic K. Butters, botanist, University of Minne-sota, also were at the site during much of the digging. All four of uswere present when I picked out of the hole which Steffen was diggingfour silt-smeared fragments of the tell-tale mussel-shell. We may notethat as the original fragments were over the fore part of the skull, theshell may well have been part of a head-dress.

Final confirmation of the source of the skeleton was made during thesix days of August 2 to 7, 1932, inclusive, when under my supervision, bythe labor of Mr. Lloyd A. Wilford, my assistant, and a field class of fivestudents, the site was completely dug out. Mr. Steffen was in constantattendance as the representative of Mr. Stary. Drs. Stauffer and Thielwere at the digging several hours each day during the three days of August3 to 5. During those days, they also investigated the immediate andneighboring environs checking glacial and geological data in relation tothe age of the silt in which the skeleton was found. During our six days'work when all silt removed was scraped from its place in paper-thinsections by small hand trowels, 355 additional fragments of bone, antler,shell and turtle carapace were obtained. Pieces of antler, much brokenand disintegrated, were found which do not belong to the dagger but twopieces of which at least are parts of an artifact. The pieces of turtlecarapace may have been parts of an ornament or of a container.At the time of the second redigging, we also put down a vertical trench

in the northwest corner of the major excavation. This trench was dugto a depth of eight feet beneath the road-bed, the first 5 feet and 9 inchesthrough layered silt. At that depth, white glacial lake sand was en-countered upon which the water of the ancient lake had deposited itsload of rock flour in the form of horizontal layers of silt. Thus, in thetrench, there were 3 feet and 6 inches of laminated silt below the depth atwhich the skeleton was found.

Doctors Stauffer and Thiel will, in our final publication, give a detailedreport of the geological significance of the find. I may say here that theyare in agreement with Dr. Leverett that Glacial Lake Pelican is olderthan Glacial Lake Agassiz by about 2000 years, and is thus some 20,000years old. They are convinced that the geological evidence compels theconclusion that the skeleton was in sediment of late Pleistocene origin.We now turn to a brief consideration of the skeleton. It is remarkably

complete. The original excavation secured bones of every unit anatomicalpart except wrist and hand, sternum, sacrum, patella, ankle and foot.Of those missing parts, there were found in the second redigging, bones ofwrist and hand and sternum, and perhaps of the foot. Because of thenature of the silt matrix and the depth of the skeleton beneath the layeredsilt, no harmful alteration had occurred on the surface of the bones of theskull. They are ivory color, hard and smooth, and show without abrasion

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every slight impression of blood vessel and convolution of brain. Althougha few small parts of the cranium and upper face are missing from the skull,the only important part entirely unrepresented is the nasal bones. Thejaws and teeth are in excellent condition, only the left upper lateral in-cisor is missing, having been lost soon after the skeleton was removed fromthe road-bed.The indications are that the skeleton is that of a young woman. If

the epiphysial criteria of the bones co6rdinate with those of modern persons,the age was seventeen years.The skull largely shows distinct Mongoloid affinities, notable in the

following characteristics: the moulding of the supraorbital and frontalregion, the shallow supraorbital fossae, the low nasal bridge and theanterior jut of the malars.The rounding of the borders of the nasal aperture is extraordinary and

is strongly reminiscent of the condition seen in anthropoid apes. Theextreme narrowness of the nasal aperture, together with its lack of lowerborders, and with its rudimentary spine, stamps this skull as a mostunusual specimen rarely paralleled in the crania of the same type. Thisnarrowness of the nasal aperture is a feature quite unexpected in primitiveAmerican types.The mandible is notable for the robusticity and thickness of the corpus,

for the low and sturdy ascending ramus and the great gonial thickenings.The supreme curved lines of the occipital, though faintly defined, rise

very high thus making a huge planum nuchale. Between those supremecurved lines and the superior curved lines, there is a smooth area character-ized by a double U-shaped groove (as U U) symmetrically disposed oneither side of the median line. These appear to be channels for bloodvessels. We have found no similar condition elsewhere in skulls or pub-lished data.The interior of the skull shows a peculiar condition in the torcular

region of the occiput. There a well-marked fossa occurs at the junctureof the left lateral sinus with the longitudinal sinus. The fossae for theoccipital lobes of the cerebrum are strongly moulded.The skull presents certain anomalies, but we have not time for their

presentation.We may say that aside from the geological evidences of the find, the

skull is morphologically of a nature to compel its assignment as an earlytype of Homo sapiens. It is of a generalized Mongoloid type and not aspecialized American type. For purposes of identification, we havenamed the type for which this skeleton stands the "Minnesota Man."

I Drs. Stauffer and Thiel made the depth measurements in terms of hundredths ofa foot and found the depth of the skeleton to be 9.73 feet below ground level. Forthe sake of simplicity, I am calling this 9 feet and 9 inches.

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