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Giant Sloths and Armadillos: Argentine

There can now be no doubt that in the southern part of South America the giant sloths survived until the human period; for in the Argentine Republic their remains have been found together with human bones and stone weapons. Dr. A. Smith Woodward, the Keeper of Geology in the Natural History Museum, thus describes this highly interesting find. "The most important discoveries, however, which appear to prove this survival, were made in 1897, and subsequent years, by Dr. F. P. Moreno, Dr. R. Hauthal, Baron Erland Nordenskiöld, and others, in a cavern near Consuelo Cove, Last Hope Inlet, Patagonia, between the 51st and 52nd degrees of south latitude. Here, in an absolutely dry and powdery deposit on the floor of the large cavern, were found numerous broken bones of several individuals of a ground-sloth, Grypotherium, which was nearly as large as Mylodon, and only differed from the latter in minor features. With the bones were several pieces of skin, evidently of the same animal, which showed marks of tools, and seemed to have been stripped off the carcase by man. There were also large lumps of excrement, besides masses of cut grass, which may have been intended for fodder. With the Grypotherium were found THE LATE SIR RICHARD OWEN.