Stones & Bones

Almost every morning since last November, a long-shanked, ruddy-faced man carrying a geologist's pick has stomped his hobnailed boots through the lobby of Mexico City's Hotel Geneve. Every evening he has returned, dusty or muddy, frequently carrying a heavy bag. The hotel's turistas speak of him as "The Prospector."

But Dr. Hellmut de Terra, a geologist turned archaeologist, is not after gold, but bones and stones. In the last 15 years he has carried his pick over much of the world's surface on the trail of prehistoric man. Dr. de Terra's current quarry is the late Ice Age in central Mexico.

Mammoth in the Bull Ring. The existence of human life in the southwestern U.S. during the late glacial period was confirmed in 1927 with the discovery at Folsom, N.M. of chipped stone "Folsom points" between the fossilized ribs of an extinct bison. Ever since, archaeologists speculated whether "Folsom man," following the herds of bison, horses and mammoths, had migrated south. The first shred of evidence that he might have was a fossilized mammoth tusk turned up last summer in the excavation for Mexico City's new bull ring. The tusk bore a deep incision which, said the archaeologists, might well have been made by human hands.

Dr. de Terra picked up the scent last November. He made his first strike in an area that he had not considered promising: a handful of stone artifacts--scrapers, drills and flaked stones--projecting from the eroded wall of a ravine near Teotihuacan, northeast of Mexico City. With this unexpected encouragement, he went to Tequixquiac, a spot known to be rich in fossilized remains of animals. Dr. de Terra hoped this would yield traces of hunters as well.

There he found what he was looking for: bone tools and stone artifacts, exposed along the sidewall of a deep trench which carries Mexico City's sewage to the lowlands. According to Dr. de Terra, the soil in which the bones and stones were found was formed under a chill and rainy climate; it is his conjecture that this rainy period coincided with the last great glacial period in North America.

But Dr. de Terra hopes for better evidence. In April he will study the steep slopes of Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl (pronounced Po-po-ca-tay-petal and Eesta-see-wattle), the peaks hanging over the Valley of Mexico. He believes that the valley was covered by a high-level lake during the prehistoric rainy spell. If this is true, there should be beach formations high up on the slopes, and Dr. de Terra may find more proof of human activity in Mexico's Ice Age.

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