The Malakoff Man
Athens (Texas)Weekly Review
Thursday, February 20, 1930
Image Found at Malakoff Thousands of Years Old Austin, Texas, Feb.18--
Scientists
are showing great interest in the stone image which was found recently sixteen
feet beneath the surface in a gravelpit upon the side of a hill near Malakoff,
according to Dr. E. H. Sellards, associate director of the bureau of economic
geology at the University of Texas. The image now rest in the museum of the
bureau. The fact that the gravelpit is above present flood plane level leads to
the belief that the image was carved by a race of people who inhabited Texas
prior to the sweep of the ice sheets, the last of which came more than 25,000
years ago, but did not extend as far south as Texas, and marked the end of the
Pleistocene Age. The image is definitely of handmade origin. It is carved out of
sandstone and weighs seventy-five pounds. In the bottom of the image is a hole
which is regarded as evidence that the figure was once placed upon the top of a
projection of some kind. Two feet below the spot where the image was found in
the early Eocene age or formation, and it was from this formation that the stone
on which the carving was done was obtained, according to Dr. Sellards. The age
of this representation of the human head may date back to 50,000 to 100,000
years ago, so far as scientific knowledge is now able to judge. The image was
presented to the University by T. A. Bartlett, prominent business man of
Malakoff. The image is known at the University as "The Malakoff Man."
Read more about "The Malakoff Man" at the Handbook of Texas Online.
A third head was found in November, 1939.