Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Figure 5.2. These stone bolas were extracted from the Late Pliocene Chapadmalalan formation at Miramar, Argentina, in the presence of ethnographer Eric Boman (1924, p. 345).

It could then be left to the waves, which periodically strike the barranca, to smooth and harden the earth, in such a manner that after a few months or a year it would appear as if nothing had touched the barranca. It would be interesting to verify this experimentally.”

Boman (1921, pp. 347–348) then went on to cast doubt on another discovery made at Miramar: “In the Museo de La Plata, I have made an experiment of a similar nature, relative to a specimen discovered in the Chapadmalalan of Miramar—the femur of toxodon which has embedded in its trochanter the point of an arrow made of quartzite. I searched the museum collection for a toxodon femur of the same size and state of fossilization, and drove a similar quartzite point into the corresponding region of the bone. C. Heredia, then secretary of the museum, who studied this piece for a long time on his desk, said he could not distinguish it from the original.” However, Boman (1921, p. 348) himself admitted: “But this experiment does not demonstrate anything other than the possibility of an exact imitation, and is not a conclusive proof that the point of the arrowhead was introduced into the femur of Miramar when it was already in a fossil state.”

Boman (1921, p. 348) added: “Concerning the question of the authenticity of the finds from the Chapadmalalan strata at Miramar, in the final analysis there undoubtedly exists no conclusive proof of fraud. On the contrary many of the circumstances speak strongly in favor of their authenticity.”

Despite this remarkable admission, Boman (1921, p. 348) could not resist once more raising the possibility of fraud or incompetence: “Nevertheless, the manner in which the discoveries were made, and above all, the continuous involvement of a person such as Parodi, necessarily give rise to suspicions. I do not believe that there is anyone in the world of science who could accept without the most careful consideration the above-mentioned discoveries as authentic proofs of nothing less than the existence of humans in South America during the Tertiary epoch.”

Boman (1921, pp. 348–349) then wrote: “In North America many analogous discoveries have been unanimously and definitively rejected because they were made by illiterate workers, miners, or prospectors of various kinds. Modern science requires stringent scientific control of the facts that serve as the foundations of its conclusions. It does not admit the affirmations and stories of ordinary persons, and stories in newspapers convince no one.” Here Boman footnoted a negative report by Holmes on the auriferous gravel finds in California. We shall consider the California discoveries in some detail later in this chapter (Section 5.5), but for now we shall simply forewarn the reader that Holmes’s dismissals are themselves open to question.

It is difficult to see why Boman should have been so skeptical of Parodi.

One could argue that Parodi would not have wanted to jeopardize his secure and longstanding employment as a museum collector by manufacturing fake discoveries. In any case, the museum professionals insisted that Parodi leave any objects of human industry in place so they could be photographed, examined, and removed by experts. This procedure is superior to that employed by scientists involved in many famous discoveries that are used to uphold the currently accepted scenario of human evolution. For example, most of the Homo erectus discoveries reported by von Koenigswald in Java were made by native diggers, who, unlike Parodi, did not leave the fossils in situ but sent them in crates to von Koenigswald, who often stayed in places far from the sites. Also, many fossil hominid discoveries in Africa were made in a manner similar to that employed at Miramar—native diggers uncovered fossils or stone tools and left them in place to be examined by professional scientists. It may further be noted that the famous Venus of Willendorf, a Neolithic statuette from Europe, was discovered by a road workman. It is obvious that if one were to apply Boman’s extreme skepticism across the board one could raise suspicions of fraud about almost every paleoanthropological discovery ever made. Boman himself recognized this.

Boman admitted that his principal reasons for not accepting the Miramar discoveries were theoretical. Boman (1921, pp. 349–350) wrote: “If one were able to prove in an evident manner the authenticity of the discoveries in the Chapadmalalan of Miramar and the Tertiary age of these strata, this would provide proof not only of the existence of Tertiary humans in South America but also of a thing very strange—the identity of their artifacts with those of the modern Indians. Can anyone imagine that Miocene humans [Pliocene according to modern estimation] made polished bola stones with grooves around the middle? In response to this question, I can do nothing but repeat the point I made at the end of my last publication on Miramar, which has also been reproduced by Boule in his book on fossil man: ‘The principal difficulty in accepting a Tertiary age for the objects we have finished enumerating consists in that without exception all the objects unearthed from the Chapadmalalan at Miramar are absolutely similar to like objects found in all parts of the surface and uppermost strata of the Pampas and Patagonia. Is it possible that man could have lived in the Pampas from the Miocene to the time of the Spanish conquest, without changing his customs and without perfecting his primitive industry in some fashion?’” But why not? As previously mentioned, scientists in Africa have found that modern tribal people make crude stone tools almost identical to those recovered from geological contexts 2 million or more years old, in the same localities.

Ironically, Boman’s testimony provides, even for skeptics, very strong evidence for the presence of toolmaking human beings in Argentina as much as 3 million years ago. Even if, for the sake of argument, one admits that the first bola stone recovered during Boman’s visit to Miramar was planted by the collector Parodi, how can one explain the second and third finds? These were instigated not by the collector Parodi but by Boman himself, on the spot and without any warning. Significantly, they were completely hidden from view, and Parodi did not even hint at their existence.

Altogether, it appears that Boule (Section 5.2.4), Romero (Section 5.2.3), and Boman did very little to discredit the discoveries of Carlos Ameghino and others at the Miramar site. In fact, Boman gave first-class evidence for the existence of bola makers there in the Pliocene period.

5.3 Other Bolas and Bolalike Implements

The bolas of Miramar are significant in that they point to the existence of human beings of a high level of culture during the Pliocene, and perhaps even earlier, in South America. Similar implements have been found in Africa and Europe in formations of similar Pliocene age. This refutes the suggestion that the bolas discovered in the Pliocene Chapadmalalan of Miramar must be recent because of their resemblance to modern Argentine Indian bolas.

Bolas have also been found in Middle Pleistocene formations. In North America, bolas have been recovered from the Calico site, dated at about 200,000 years (Minshall 1989, p. 110). Bolas have also been found in China at the Gehe site, dated at about 600,000 years (Minshall 1989, p. 38), and at the similarly ancient Lantien site (Minshall 1989, p. 40).

Taken together, these round projectile stones, found in widely distant parts of the world in Pleistocene, Pliocene, and perhaps earlier geological contexts powerfully challenge the currently accepted notions of human origins and antiquity. In particular, the Pliocene discoveries of bolas strongly contradict the idea that 2–3 million years ago only very primitive protohuman hominids were living, and these only in Africa. The use of bola stones requires complex behavior generally associated with Homo sapiens sapiens. Let us now give some detailed attention to two significant cases of bolas and bolalike implements—the Bramford sling stone and the bolas of Olduvai Gorge.

5.3.1 The Sling Stone from Bramford, England (Pliocene to Eocene)

In 1926, one of J. Reid Moir’s assistants uncovered a particularly interesting object from below the Pliocene Red Crag. Moir had been conducting excavations in the Red Crag and detritus bed below the Red Crag, which were exposed in a brick-earth pit on the north bank of the River Gipping at Bramford, near Ipswich. Moir (1929, p. 63) wrote: “The beds surmounting the loamy sand at Pit No. 2, Bramford, do not exhibit signs of glacial disturbance such as might have ploughed into the detritus-bed, and rearranged it with later material. The conclusion, therefore, must be that the object now to be described which was removed from the detritus-bed by my trained excavator, John Baxter, formed an integral part of that deposit.”

Moir recalled that Baxter once gave him a small oval object that did not seem to warrant close inspection. Three years later, however, the round stone object ( Figure 5.3) was noticed by Henri Breuil: “While I was staying in Ipswich with my friend J. Reid Moir, we were examining together a drawer of objects from the base of the Red Crag at Bramford, when J. Reid Moir showed me a singular eggshaped object, which had been picked up on account of its unusual shape. Even at first sight it appeared to me to present artificial striations and facets, and I therefore examined it more closely with a mineralogist’s lens [ Figure 5.4 ]. This examination showed me that my first impression was fully justified, and that the object had been shaped by the hand of man. . . . The whole surface . . . has been scraped with a flint, in such a way that it is covered with a series of facets running fairly regularly from end to end. . . . The scraping described above covers the whole surface of the object, and penetrates into its irregularities. As it stands, the object is entirely artificial, and, although somewhat smaller, it recalls the steatite sling stones of New Caledonia” (Moir 1929, p. 63). According to Moir (1929, p. 64), several other archeologists had confirmed Breuil’s hypotheses. Moir, who believed the object had been shaped when soft, performed experiments with clay and flint, and he obtained results that were very much the same.

Figure 5.3. A sling stone from the detritus bed beneath the Red Crag at Bramford, England (Moir 1929, p. 64). At least Pliocene in age, the sling stone could be as old as the Eocene.

Figure 5.4. A drawing showing marks of intentional shaping on the sling stone from the detritus bed beneath the Red Crag at Bramford, England (Moir 1929, p. 65).

Moir (1929, p. 65) wrote: “it becomes clear that the presence of this object at such an horizon . . . points to the fact that man of the Pliocene period had already progressed some distance upon the evolutionary path, as it seems impossible to imagine any ape-like creature producing artifacts such as have now been found in the detritus bed.” Sling stones or bola stones represent a level of technological sophistication universally associated with modern Homo sapiens. It may be recalled that the detritus bed below the Red Crag contains fossils and sediments from habitable land surfaces ranging from Pliocene to Eocene in age. Therefore the Bramford sling stone could be anywhere from 2 to 55 million years old.

It is altogether remarkable that almost without exception scientists have ignored the Bramford sling stone. It was found by a trained excavator, reported by a reputable archeologist, and examined by many experts including the famous Professor Breuil of the Institute of Human Paleontology in France. Some might object that it was found by a hired digger and not immediately noticed. But many of the Java Homo erectus fossils reported by von Koenigswald, which now figure prominently in every textbook of general paleoanthropology, were uncovered by native collectors. This is also true of the Petralona skull, found by Greek peasants in a cave. These cases, and many others like them, will be discussed in coming chapters. If these finds are accepted, despite the questionable circumstances of their discovery, then the Bramford sling stone deserves equal treatment. Otherwise we have another good example of scientists applying a double standard in the treatment of anomalous evidence.

5.3.2 Bolas from Olduvai Gorge (Early Pleistocene)

In 1956, G. H. R. von Koenigswald described some human artifacts that were discovered in the lower levels of the Olduvai Gorge site in Tanzania, Africa. “Apart from these archaic handaxes,” wrote von Koenigswald (1956, p. 170), “the same levels have yielded numbers of stones that have been chipped until they were roughly spherical. . . . These stones are enormously widespread in Africa, occurring both in the north and south; indeed, at Ain Hanech, east of Algiers, they are the only signs of human culture that have been found there in association with fossil remains of elephant and giraffe. They are believed to be an extremely primitive form of throwing ball. Stone balls of this type, known to them as bolas, are still used by native hunters in South America. They are tied in little leather bags and two or three of them are attached to a long cord. Holding one ball in his hand, the hunter whirls the other one or two around his head and then lets fly.” An early hominid might have had enough intelligence to use bolas, but only Homo sapiens sapiens is actually known to have used them. Bolas are not unequivocally associated with the fossil remains of any other hominid. The objects reported by von Koenigswald, if used in the same manner as South American bolas, imply that their makers were adept not only at stoneworking but leatherworking as well.

All this becomes problematic, however, when one considers that Bed I at Olduvai, where stone balls were found, is 1.7–2.0 million years old. According to standard views on human evolution, only Australopithecus and Homo habilis should have been around at that time. At present, there is not any definite evidence that Australopithecus used tools, and Homo habilis is not generally thought to have been capable of employing a technology as sophisticated as that represented by bola stones, if that is what the objects really are. Some scientists doubt that Homo habilis was a toolmaker at all, and want to attribute tools found in the same level as Homo habilis to early representatives of Homo erectus.

Once more we find ourselves confronted with a situation that calls for an obvious, but forbidden, suggestion—perhaps there were creatures of modern human capability at Olduvai during the earliest Pleistocene. After all, the present inhabitants of the same region, as well as people in other parts of the world, make and use tools like the pebble choppers found in Bed I of Olduvai Gorge. Any crude stone tool now attributed to Homo habilis or Homo erectus could, therefore, also be attributed to Homo sapiens.

Those who find this suggestion incredible will doubtlessly respond that there is no fossil evidence to support such a conclusion. In terms of evidence currently accepted, that is certainly true. But if we widen our horizons somewhat, we encounter Reck’s skeleton, fully human, recovered from upper Bed II, right at Olduvai Gorge (Section 11.1). And not far away, at Kanam, Louis Leakey, according to a commission of scientists, discovered a fully human jaw in Early Pleistocene sediments, equivalent in age to Bed I (Section 11.2.3). In more recent times, humanlike femurs have been discovered in East Africa, in Early Pleistocene contexts (Section 11.6.3). These isolated femurs were originally attributed to Homo habilis, but the subsequent discovery of a relatively complete skeleton of a Homo habilis individual has shown the Homo habilis anatomy, including the femur, to be somewhat apelike. This opens the possibility that the humanlike femurs once attributed to Homo habilis might have belonged to anatomically modern human beings living in East Africa during the Early Pleistocene (Section 11.7.1). If we expand the range of our search to other parts of the world, we can multiply the number of examples of fully human fossil remains from the Early Pleistocene and earlier. In this context, the bola stones of Olduvai do not seem out of place.

But perhaps the objects are not bolas. To this possibility Mary Leakey (1971, p. 262) replied: “Although there is no direct evidence that spheroids were used as bolas, no alternative explanation has yet been put forward to account for the numbers of these tools and for the fact that many have been carefully and accurately shaped. If they were intended to be used merely as missiles, with little chance of recovery, it seems unlikely that so much time and care would have been spent on their manufacture.” Mary Leakey (1971, p. 266) added: “Their use as bola stones has been strongly supported by L. S. B. Leakey and may well be correct.”

It should also be noted that Louis Leakey (1960a, p. 1051) claimed to have found “a genuine bone tool” in the same level as the bola stones. Leakey (1960a, p. 1051) said, “This would appear to be some sort of a ‘lissoir’ for working leather. It postulates a more evolved way of life for the makers of the Oldowan culture than most of us would have expected.”

The complex behavior required for making and using bolas seems clearly out of character for either Australopithecus or Homo habilis, both of which were quite apelike. As far as Homo erectus is concerned, this creature is not generally portrayed using bolas. If use of bolas were to be attributed to Homo erectus, this would require a substantial redefinition of his technological capabilities. It thus appears that the bola stones may point to the existence in the African Early Pleistocene of a being with the intellectual and physical abilities of Homo sapiens. This, of course, would do severe damage to the whole picture of human evolution. The sling stone discovered below the Red Crag, with its possible age of 2.5 million years, could also be damaging to the evolutionary hypothesis.

5.4 Relatively Advanced North American Paleolithic Finds

We shall now examine some relatively advanced anomalous Paleolithic implements from North America, beginning with those found at Sheguiandah, Canada, on Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron. Many of these North American discoveries are not particularly old, but they are nonetheless significant because they give insight into the inner workings of archeology and paleoanthropology. We have already seen how the scientific community suppresses data with uncomfortable implications for the currently dominant picture of human evolution. And now we shall encounter revelations of another aspect of this—the personal distress and bitterness experienced by scientists unfortunate enough to make anomalous discoveries.

5.4.1 Sheguiandah: Archeology as a Vendetta

The excavations at Sheguiandah were carried out between 1951 and 1955 by Thomas E. Lee, an anthropologist at the National Museum of Canada. The upper layers of the site contained, at a depth of approximately 6 inches (Level III), a variety of projectile points (Figure 5.5).

Figure 5.5. Projectile point from Level III of the Sheguiandah site, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 61).

According to Lee, excavation exposed an implement-bearing layer of unsorted sediments, apparently a glacial till. Ordinary sediments deposited by water tend to be sorted into distinct layers of sand and gravel.

Deposits laid down by receding glaciers are generally not sorted in this fashion. Since at Sheguiandah stone tools were found in an unsorted till, the implication was that human beings had lived in the area during or before the time of the last glaciation. Further study showed that there was a second layer of till, which also contained artifacts.

Among the stone implements found in the upper section of glacial till, Level IV, were several large, thin, bifacial implements (Figure 5.6). T. E. Lee (1983, pp. 64–65) said about the bifaces: “Many retain some portion of a large bulb of percussion at one end. . . . Secondary chipping is prominent. . . . An interesting feature of several bifaces is the curious shoulder produced at one end. . . . Some of the double-shouldered tools show unmistakable evidence of use as scrapers, presumably hafted.” In addition, Lee (1983, p. 65) stated: “A few cutting and scraping tools have been found in Level IV. Two examples show fine cutting edges resulting from removal of small flakes from both sides of one edge.”

Figure 5.6. Bifacially chipped implement from upper glacial till (Level IV) at the Sheguiandah site (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 64).

The lower section of till, Level V, produced small thick bifaces and man-made flakes (Figure 5.7). The artifacts found in Level V were fewer in number than those in Level IV (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 66).

Figure 5.7. Quartzite bifaces from the lower glacial till (Level V) at Sheguiandah (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 66). Geologist John Sanford (1971) argued these tools and the one in Figure 5.6, were at least 65,000 years old.

Stone implements were also discovered in the layers beneath the tills. The layer immediately below the lower till, a meltwater deposit, covered a pavement of boulders. In and just beneath the boulder pavement were discovered one notched biface and several scrapers. Below the boulder pavement were silty stratified clays, with some cobblestones and boulders. From the upper part of the stratified clays, apparently deposited in a lake, came a broken bifacial implement and several stone flakes apparently struck by human beings (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 49).

How old were the tools? In his first reports, Lee was indefinite. Yet it seemed to him that some Sheguiandah artifacts were older than standard views about the peopling of the New World would allow. Lee (1972, p. 30) stated: “It is impossible to set a maximum age with certainty. . . . Of the four geologists most closely concerned—Dr. John Sanford of Wayne [State] University, Dr. Bruce Liberty and Dr. Jean Terasmae, both formerly of the G.S.C. [Geological Survey of Canada], and Dr. Ernst Antevs of Arizona— all but Dr. Antevs suggested that the site might extend back to interglacial times. Opinions differed as to whether that was 30,000 or 100,000 years ago. Dr. Antevs favored an interstadial for the appearance of man . . . estimated by him at 30,000 years ago. On his advice the group, in close communication, made public their conclusion: ‘a minimum of 30,000 years.’” In another paper, Lee (1981) said some of the geologists had suggested that the implements were perhaps 150,000 years old.

From this point on the story becomes murky. Lee’s discovery was obviously controversial, pointing to a human presence in North America far earlier than most scientists thought possible. John Sanford nevertheless continued to support Lee’s position. He provided geological evidence and arguments suggesting the Sheguiandah site was quite old. But the view advocated by Lee and Sanford did not receive serious consideration from other scientists. Instead, political maneuvers and ridicule were employed to discredit Lee.

Sanford (1971) gave strong arguments for an early Wisconsin or Sangamon interglacial date for the tools in and below the tills at Sheguiandah. The reasoning he used was somewhat complex, reflecting the intricate series of Wisconsin glacial events at the site.

The Wisconsin, the final North American glacial age, is divided into three periods—early, middle, and late (or main). The entire Wisconsin glaciation was preceded by the Sangamon interglacial.

The geology of the Pleistocene glacial episodes is undergoing constant revision. In fact, some experts would favor scrapping the traditional system of four principal glaciations (the Günz, Mindel, Riss, and Würm of Europe and their North American equivalents) for a system of alternating warm and cold periods of shorter duration. This system is said to more accurately reflect the evidence obtained from oxygen isotope studies of ocean core samples (Evans 1971). Even so, most authorities continue to make use of the traditional nomenclature, and we have chosen to do the same.

The early Wisconsin was dominated by glacial advances from centers north of the Great Lakes down into Ohio, Indiana, and other states. In the eastern Great Lakes region, the ice front was divided into three principal lobes (the Huron, Erie, and Ontario Lobes), which tended to advance and retreat together. The Huron Lobe is the one that covered Sheguiandah, located on Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron.

The middle Wisconsin was a period of significant glacial retreats, which took place during interstadials, or warm periods. The interstadial retreats were interrupted by some partial readvances.

During the late Wisconsin, the glaciers again advanced, this time to their maximum extent, after which they finally retreated, leaving the present Great Lakes.

According to Sanford, the presence of tools in the tills indicated that Manitoulin Island must have been habitable (not covered by ice or water) at certain periods. During these times, people quarried stone and made tools. After these periods of habitation, glacial advances mixed the tools lying on the ground with stone and earth. When the glaciers retreated this material was deposited as till. So the most important problem facing Sanford was to identify the times when it was possible for toolmakers to have lived in the vicinity of Sheguiandah and the times that glaciers subsequently advanced over the habitation sites.

Supporters of the dominant view about the peopling of the New World would want the habitation dates to be as recent as possible. This is because they believe that a human presence in the New World does not go much further back than 12,000 years. It should be kept in mind, however, that such a recent period of habitation at Sheguiandah must have been followed by a glacial advance and retreat; otherwise, one would not find tools in glacial till.

Was there in fact such a situation within the past 12,000 or so years at Sheguiandah—a period when Manitoulin Island was habitable followed by a period of glacial advance and retreat? In the 1950s, when the site was discovered, it was thought there were two relatively recent glacial advances and retreats that might have reached Sheguiandah—the Cochrane advance, at maybe 8,000 years ago (Nilsson 1983, p. 390), and the Valders advance, at around 11,000 years ago (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, p. 81). These advances were thought to have taken place after the main Wisconsin ice sheet retreated north of Manitoulin Island during the final part of the late Wisconsin. One might therefore propose that the tools found in the glacial till were manufactured in a warm period before the Cochrane advance or before the Valders advance. The Two Creeks interstadial has been mentioned.

But current geological opinion argues against this. First of all, during the Two Creeks interstadial, Sheguiandah appears to have been under ice (Hough 1958, p. 288). And when the ice finally retreated, it apparently did not come back (and deposit till). Also, recent authorities do not find evidence for either the Cochrane or Valders advances in the Lake Huron region (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, pp. 71–72, 95–96; Nilsson 1983, p. 390). According to this view, around 11,000 or 12,000 years ago, the retreating Wisconsin ice sheet passed north of the region now occupied by Lake Huron, apparently without advancing again (Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, pp. 95–96). Furthermore, as the ice passed north of the present Lake Huron basin, it appears that Manitoulin Island remained under a body of water called Lake Algonquin. Lake Algonquin was a proglacial lake, one that forms at the front of an advancing or retreating glacier. “The position of the ice front is speculative,” said Sanford (1971, p. 12). “However, if the map presented by Hough (1958, fig. 62, p. 288) can be considered as summarizing the opinion of geologists, and I believe that it can, Sheguiandah would have been covered by ice during the Two Creeks interval. On the other hand, let us suppose the ice had melted sufficiently so that the front was farther north; and supposing that the area would have been habitable so far as climate is concerned, even though the ice front was not very far away. What are the chances people could have lived on the island? They are extremely slight, because of the probability that the island would have been well covered by water.”

Thus far in our review we have found no situation within the past 12,000 years that would account for stone tools in glacial till at Sheguiandah on Manitoulin Island in northern Lake Huron. What about in earlier late Wisconsin times? Sanford (1971, p. 3) stated: “We do not know whether there was an earlier late-Wisconsin interstadial during which the site was uncovered and suitable for occupancy. The literature is commonly indefinite on this point, but the series of charts by Hough (1958, figs. 53–75) appear to summarize general opinion quite well. The literature indicates that the site was covered by either ice or water throughout late Wisconsin time until the lowering of Lake Algonquin.”

Sanford’s judgement is confirmed in a later study by two experts on the Wisconsin glaciation—A. Dreimanis of the University of Western Ontario and R. P. Goldthwait of Ohio State University. In a report titled “Wisconsin Glaciation in the Huron, Erie, and Ontario Lobes,” published by the Geological Society of America, Dreimanis and Goldthwait (1973) provided a chart showing the changing position of the ice front during the entire Wisconsin glaciation (our Table 5.2, Figure 5.8). According to Dreimanis and Goldthwait (1973, p. 81), the ice front depicted on the chart “represents the advances and retreats of the Manitoulin Island, in northern Lake Huron, is at the same latitude as the middle part of the St. Lawrence Lowlands. As can be seen from this table (after Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973, p. 81), the ice front was well south of this region during the entire Wisconsin glaciation, except for the St. Pierre interstadial at 65,000 –70,000 years b.p. Tools found in glacial till at Sheguiandah, on Manitoulin Island, were probably made during this period or during the preceding Sangamon interglacial (Sanford 1971).

Figure 5.8. The Great Lakes region, showing Manitoulin Island, where the Sheguiandah site is located.

Ontario-Erie Lobe, including also participation of the Georgian Bay and Huron Lobes.” The latter two lobes are the ones that covered Manitoulin Island and the Sheguiandah site. From the chart and discussion supplied by Dreimanis and Goldthwait, it can be concluded that Manitoulin Island was under ice during the entire period from about 10,000 years ago back to the time of the St. Pierre interstadial, which ended about 65,000 years ago in the early Wisconsin.

Prior to the St. Pierre interstadial came the first Wisconsin ice advance, but Dreimanis and Goldthwait (1973, p. 81) said “there is no evidence that this first advance of the ice sheet reached the Great Lakes.” Thus the Sheguiandah site was habitable during and before the St. Pierre interstadial.

This brings us to the Sangamon interglacial period, which preceded the Wisconsin glaciation. According to some, the Sangamon interglacial extended from 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, while others say it extended from 75,000 to 125,000 years ago. The latter conclusion is based on the fact that the Gulf of Mexico provides fossil and other evidence for a warm climate during that period (Nilsson 1983, p. 455). So the most likely period for the manufacture of the stone tools found at Sheguiandah extends from the St. Pierre interstadial back through the Sangamon interglacial, perhaps as far back as 125,000 years ago.

Therefore, according to the view outlined by Sanford, we can envision the following series of events to account for the artifact-bearing geological formations observed at Sheguiandah. During the Sangamon interglacial or the earliest part of Wisconsin time, humans manufactured tools on and north of Manitoulin Island. As the ice sheet advanced after the St. Pierre interstadial, a proglacial lake formed in front of the glaciers. This proglacial lake, which covered the Sheguiandah site, deposited sediments. Perhaps a few tools discarded by humans traveling over the lake were incorporated into the sediments.

As the glacier advanced further toward Sheguiandah, it picked up tools, rocks, and earth. By ice rafting, some of these tools and rocks were floated a short distance into the proglacial lake and dropped, settling on top of the lacustrine sediments, which Lee found at the lowest levels of his excavations. Sanford (1971, p. 6) stated: “In consideration of the character of the overlying strata it would be difficult to explain these beds chronologically other than as an early Wisconsin, pro-glacial lake deposit.”

As the ice approached, the early Wisconsin proglacial lake at Sheguiandah disappeared. Meltwater from the ice front created the glacio-fluvial layers of stone and clay over the lacrustine deposits. Sanford (1971, p. 6) stated: “The boulder pavement at the base of this unit probably represents a time of erosion during which the finer materials were removed.”

Implements were found by Lee among and below the boulders in the pavement. Sanford (1971, p. 6) stated: “The presence of a few artifacts under boulders in the pavement is difficult to explain except by the same mechanism that provided for them in the still higher tills. They were picked up by advancing ice from a cultural site that existed prior to this glacial advance, and therefore were available for incorporation in both the outwash materials and the till deposited by the melting ice. The stratigraphic relations indicate an early Wisconsin age for this horizon. Erosion responsible for the boulder bed may have taken place during an early Wisconsin interstadial or even during a very minor recession of the ice front during a time of increasing glaciation.”

Meltwater from the glacier deposited over the boulder pavement more glacio-fluvial materials, which Sanford (1971, p. 6) characterized as “outwash materials from the front of the advancing ice.” Sanford stated (1971, p. 12): “The glacio-fluvial materials underlying tills at the habitation area certainly must be as old as early Wisconsin in age.”

Finally, the glaciers themselves advanced over the site and then retreated, leaving the lower layer of till, which contains stone tools. Then the region was again briefly inhabited by a group of humans who made a different kind of stone tool. The early Wisconsin glaciers advanced once more, and when they finally receded tens of thousands of years later, in late Wisconsin times, they left the upper till—along with the artifacts they picked up in the early Wisconsin.

Sanford (1971, p. 14) stated: “the artifacts in the lower till layer, and probably those in the uppermost, certainly date from early rather than late Wisconsin time. . . . A Sangamon age for the earliest artifacts at Sheguiandah would appear more logical than an early Wisconsin date, at this latitude.”

After the final glacial retreat, the site was covered by Lake Algonquin, which receded about 9,000 years ago, leaving Manitoulin Island as we now know it. Indians inhabited the island and left stone tools, including projectile points, now found in the surface layers above the glacial tills.

It is interesting to note that Sanford, unlike Lee, believed that the projectile point horizon (Level III) was also glacial in origin. According to Sanford (1983, p. 83): “It seems reasonably certain that the approximately six inches of surface material overlying the projectile point horizon was originally deposited as till. . . . [its] general character shows a similarity to the underlying tills and indicates a common genesis. The artifacts show it to be a definite stratigraphic unit.” If Sanford’s view is accepted, then the very advanced projectile points (Figures 5.5, 5.9) should, like the tools in the layers below them, also be early Wisconsin or Sangamon in age.

Figure 5.9. Quartzite projectile point recovered from Level III of the Sheguiandah site, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 62).

So it seems there is very good evidence for the presence of toolmaking humans at Sheguiandah at least as far back as the St. Pierre interstadial, which ended 65,000 years ago. The implements could possibly have been manufactured during the Sangamon interglacial, which means they could be as much as 125,000 years old. The presence of relatively advanced stone tools in the St. Pierre interstadial or Sangamon interglacial of North America would, according to currently dominant views, be quite unexpected.

5.4.1.2 How Lee Was Treated

We shall now present Thomas E. Lee’s account of how his discoveries were received. Although this history will not be found in standard archeological publications, it is worth careful study. Lee’s experiences shed light on how the scientific process works in practice. We shall leave it to the reader to decide whether or not his complaints are justified.

Lee (1966a, pp. 18 –19) recalled: “Several prominent geologists who examined the numerous excavations in progress during four years at Sheguiandah privately expressed the belief that the lower levels of the Sheguiandah site are interglacial. Such was the climate in professional circles—one of jealousy, hostility, skepticism, antagonism, obstructionism, and persecution—that, on the advice of the famed authority, Dr. Ernst Antevs of Arizona, a lesser date of ‘30,000 years minimum’ was advanced in print by some of the geologists to avoid ridicule and to gain partial acceptance from the more serious scholars. But even that minimum was too much for the protagonists of the ‘fluted-pointfirst-Americans’ myth. The site’s discoverer [Lee] was hounded from his Civil Service position into prolonged unemployment; publication outlets were cut off; the evidence was misrepresented by several prominent authors among the Brahmins; the tons of artifacts vanished into storage bins of the National Museum of Canada; for refusing to fire the discoverer, the Director of the National Museum [Dr. Jacques Rousseau], who had proposed having a monograph on the site published, was himself fired and driven into exile; official positions of prestige and power were exercised in an effort to gain control over just six Sheguiandah specimens that had not gone under cover; and the site has been turned into a tourist resort. All of this, without the profession, in four long years, bothering to take a look, when there was still time to look. Sheguiandah would have forced embarrassing admissions that the Brahmins did not know everything. It would have forced the re-writing of almost every book in the business. It had to be killed. It was killed.”

Lee’s account was supported by Dr. Carl B. Compton, who wrote in The Interamerican (January 1966, p. 8): “When Thomas E. Lee found artifactual material in glacial till at Sheguiandah some years ago and when the age was estimated by several well-known and respected geologists at more than 30,000, the Brahmins presented their well-known ‘Berlin Wall’ to ‘contain’ this heresy” (T. E. Lee 1966b). Compton obviously thought that Lee was the victim of a power play in a scholarly community divided into hostile factions.

Here are additional comments by T. E. Lee (1964, p. 24) on his fate: “I, even as a professional archaeologist and officer of the National Museum of Canada over most of a nine-year period, found my work subjected to discrimination, whisper campaigns, and behind-the-scenes throat-cutting of the most contemptible and despicable order.” Eventually, Lee had no choice except to resign from his position at the museum. He recalled: “My own resignation was in protest against the activities of R. S. MacNeish and was forced upon me by an impossible ultimatum delivered to me by that same Director of Natural History” (T. E. Lee 1964, p. 28).

Lee experienced great difficulty in getting his reports on his discoveries at Sheguiandah published through the National Museum of Canada. He wrote: “By depriving me of all essential services, burdening me with routine cataloguing, and closing publication outlets to me, every effort was made in the National Museum of Canada and in its string of satellites to block such publication. . . . I was hounded from my Canadian government position by certain American citizens on both sides of the border and driven into eight long years of blacklisting and enforced unemployment” (T. E. Lee 1974, p. 23). He also said that papers written by him were “filed away and lost” in the museum (T. E. Lee 1964, p. 24).

Having failed to get his reports into print in government publications, Lee, as a private citizen, experienced similar difficulties with standard scientific journals. Expressing his frustration, he wrote: “A nervous or timid editor, his senses acutely attuned to the smell of danger to position, security, reputation, or censure, submits copies of a suspect paper to one or two advisors whom he considers well placed to pass safe judgement. They read it, or perhaps only skim through it looking for a few choice phrases that can be challenged or used against the author (their opinions were formed long in advance, on the basis of what came over the grapevine or was picked up in the smoke-filled back rooms at conferences—little bits of gossip that would tell them that the writer was far-out, a maverick, or an untouchable). Then, with a few cutting, unchallenged, and entirely unsupported statements, they ‘kill’ the paper. The beauty—and the viciousness—of the system lies in the fact that they remain forever anonymous. The author may damn and fume and even correctly guess at their identity—but he is helpless. When in the course of time he is dead and safely buried—and proven to have been right—he will either be ignored or said to have been right, but for the wrong reasons” (T. E. Lee 1977, p. 2).

Most of the key reports about Sheguiandah were published in the Anthropological Journal of Canada, which Lee himself founded and edited. Lee died in 1982, and the journal was then edited for a short time by his son, Robert E. Lee.

After Lee left the National Museum of Canada, he eventually obtained a teaching position at Laval University. In 1980, he received for review a book (Initiation a l’archeologie) by René Lévesque, a former student. Lévesque had written on the title page: “I hope not to lose your friendship with my book. But the eternal enemies are still on the war path. I am honored to be with you in that fight” (T. E. Lee 1981, p. 18). Somewhat puzzled, Lee paged through the book. It contained a list of important archeological sites in North America, but the list did not include Sheguiandah. Nor was there any discussion of Sheguiandah in the text. Lee (1981, p. 19) found this strange, because Lévesque, his student, knew well “the inescapable proofs that put Sheguiandah back in the 150,000-year range, as determined by a number of geologists, both Canadian and American.” Lee noticed, however, a very complete list of his works on Sheguiandah in the bibliography in the back of the book. “It should be clear by now,” wrote Lee (1981, p. 19), “to everyone who reads this in the far corners of the earth, that a hatchet job was done . . . to eliminate Sheguiandah from the text, with the Bibliographie being overlooked, either in haste or arrogance.”

Of course, it has not been possible for establishment scientists to completely avoid mentioning Sheguiandah, but when they do, they tend to downplay, ignore, or misrepresent any evidence for an unusually great age for the site.

Lee’s son Robert wrote: “Sheguiandah is erroneously explained to students as an example of postglacial mudflow rather than Wisconsin glacial till; the reports, they are told, are too badly written to be worth reading, if indeed their existence is acknowledged” (R. E. Lee 1983, p. 11).

The original reports are, however, not so badly written, and give cogent arguments against the mudflow hypothesis. The elder Lee (1983, p. 58) wrote that many geologists “have stated that the deposits would definitely be called glacial till were it not for the presence of artifacts within them. This has been the reaction of almost all visiting geologists.”

To Thomas E. Lee (1983, p. 58), the signs of the glacial origin of the deposits in question were unmistakable: “Among the indications which point to till are the lenses of fine gravels and sands observed in the lower half of the deposits. Such lenses are typical of till.”

Any kind of mudflow or soil creep (solifluxion) would have required a slope of an appropriate inclination in the immediate area of the site, but no such slope was evident. The paths of flows from more distant high areas were blocked by transverse ridges of quartzite bedrock. Furthermore, according to T. E. Lee (1983, p. 58), the deposits in question were not of the same type as those resulting from solifluxion.

Lee (1983, p. 58) added: “An adequate explanation must also include the evidence in the Middle Quarry area near the high point of the hill, where unsorted artifact-bearing deposits are perched on the top of a ridge. There is no place from which soil could have crept, unless we can conceive of it crossing a swamp and climbing a ridge.” Lee (1983, p. 59) concluded the deposits had been left on the ridge, and elsewhere, by glaciers.

Lee also considered other possible explanations for the presence of stone implements deep in unsorted deposits. One was that the deposits had been churned by the action of frost. But Lee (1983, pp. 59–60) pointed out: “If frost action has been churning the unsorted deposits, it is difficult to see why the artifact assemblages are not thoroughly mixed. . . . Frost churning cannot account for superimposed assemblages, typologically and quantitatively different, within the unsorted deposits. The occurrence of undisturbed horizontal lenses of fine gravels and sands in the lower half of the till deposits, sometimes with artifacts directly under them, is conclusive evidence that frost action did not severely affect the lower beds.” The introduction of tools into the deposits by tree roots was considered and rejected for the same reasons.

Summarizing his findings, T. E. Lee (1983, p. 71) wrote: “Various explanations for the unsorted artifacts-bearing deposits have been considered, including tree plowing, root slumping, beach action, ice rafting, frost action, viscous flow, and soil creep. Although these factors may have been operative in a minor way, they do not explain the main body of the observed evidence. The suggestion of glacial till, on the other hand, is favored and supported by the nature of the deposits and their peculiar position on the site; the faceted stones, many of which are striated; the distribution and condition of encased artifacts; the occurrence of sand ‘lumps’; and the presence of certain horizontal lenses of sorted sands, which are typical of till.”

Sanford visited the Sheguiandah site several times during the period 1952–1957. In agreement with Lee, Sanford (1983, p. 82), a professional geologist, found the unsorted artifact-bearing layers to be glacial till: “There is no doubt in the writer’s mind that this is till, although its origin has been questioned. It is made of a heterogeneous mixture of material ranging from clay to boulders.” Sanford, for the same reasons as Lee, believed that neither frost, nor root action, nor mudflows could explain the formation of the layers in question and the presence in them of stone tools. The layers of till were thin, but Sanford said this was to be expected because previous glaciations had stripped the region of materials that could have been incorporated into the tills.

Sanford (1971, p. 7) wrote: “Perhaps the best corroboration of these unsorted deposits as ice-laid till was the visit of some 40 or 50 geologists to the site in 1954 during the annual field trip of the Michigan Basin Geological Society. At that time the excavation was open and the till could be seen. The sediments were presented to this group in the field as till deposits, and there was no expressed dissension from the explanation. Certainly had there been any room for doubt as to the nature of these deposits it would have been expressed at this time.”

The belief that the Sheguiandah deposits are something other than glacial till is not confined to scientists holding the view that humans entered North America no earlier than 12,000 years ago. Even maverick researchers who accept a far more ancient date of entry hesitate about Sheguiandah because of the advanced nature of the stone tools found there. According to these researchers, early Americans, living in early Wisconsin and pre-Wisconsin times at sites such as Buchanan Canyon in San Diego and Calico in southern California, had a very primitive level of culture and used only the crudest kind of stone tools. From one advocate of this point of view, we have heard that the Sheguiandah tills are actually storm-driven beach deposits, perhaps 10,000 years old at most. This despite the fact that T. E. Lee (1983, p. 67) said “beach action has been considered and rejected.” The reports of Lee and Sanford, full of references to old beaches on Manitoulin Island, show that they were fully acquainted with beach deposits and could make evaluations concerning their presence at particular locations. Arguing against the storm-driven beach deposit hypothesis is the fact that the stone tools found in the till are “not severely ground, battered or smashed” and that their “edges are often sharp” (T. E. Lee 1983, p. 58).

In cases of controversial claims, such as those made by Lee in connection with Sheguiandah, it is, of course, to be expected that counterarguments will be presented. But when such counterarguments and critiques are repeated blindly as conclusive verdicts, this tends to prevent any genuine discussion of the real issues. We might imagine the following classroom scene. “Tools found in till at Sheguiandah?” says the professor. “That’s nonsense. Everyone knows the so-called till is just a beach deposit.” Even a student with some genuine interest in the matter might hesitate to raise further questions because of fear of ridicule.

If one approach is to deny that the unsorted tool-bearing deposits are till, another is to demand excessively high levels of proof for a human presence at the site at the designated time. James B. Griffin, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, believed that the most certain date for the entry of humans into the New World was 12,000 years ago, although he admitted growing evidence favored a 20,000-year date. Griffin (1979, pp. 43–44) added: “There are, however, some evaluations of the antiquity of man in the New World measured in the high tens of thousands and to hundreds of thousands of years or more on what I regard as either provocative or very slim evidence. These are simply not regarded as demonstrated by a large number of competent authorities.”

This is how the social process of science works. Someone might present a good case, but if a consensus of established authorities does not support it, it goes by the wayside.

Griffin (1979, p. 46) further stated: “There are a large number of locations in North America for which considerable antiquity has been claimed as places inhabited by early Indians. Even whole books have been published on nonsites.

The reasons it is now difficult or impossible to include such ‘sites’ varies from location to location; a detailed dissent is not within the scope of this chapter.” Griffin included Sheguiandah in the category of a nonsite. Of course, it is understandable that Griffin may not have had space in a chapter authored by him in a collective work to give a detailed discussion of why Sheguiandah should not be considered quite old. But he should have at least given some reference to where such a detailed dissent might be found. This he failed to do. As yet, we have found no detailed refutation in print, by Griffin or anyone else, of Sanford’s analysis of the site’s geology.

If, according to Griffin, Sheguiandah is a nonsite, then what is a real site? Griffin (1979, p. 44) stated that a proper site must possess “a clearly identifiable geologic context. . . . with no possibility of intrusion or secondary deposition.” He also insisted that a proper site must be studied by several geologists expert in the particular formations present there, and that there must be substantial agreement among these experts. Furthermore, there must be “a range of tool forms and debris . . . well preserved animal remains . . . pollen studies . . . macrobotanical materials . . . human skeletal remains. Griffin also required dating by radiocarbon and other methods. Although Griffin (1979, p. 44) himself admitted “this is an ideal model for an ‘Early Man’ site,” he nevertheless insisted that “insofar as finds that have been proposed fail to satisfy such criteria they are inevitably open to question, rejection, or suspended judgement.” The problem here is that practically none of the locations where major paleoanthropological discoveries have been made would qualify as genuine sites. This includes many sites crucial to the picture of human evolution so carefully built up over the past century. For example, most of the African discoveries of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus have occurred not in “clearly identifiable” geological contexts, but on the surface or in cave deposits, which are notoriously difficult to interpret geologically. Most of the Java Homo erectus finds also occurred on the surface, in poorly specified locations. At none of the places of these discoveries can one find the combination of factors Griffin deemed necessary for a proper site.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Sheguiandah site appears to satisfy most of Griffin’s stringent requirements. Implements were found in a geological context clearer than that of many accepted sites. Several geologists expert in North American glacial deposits did apparently agree on an age in excess of 30,000 years. Evidence suggested there was no secondary deposition or intrusion. A variety of tool types were found, pollen studies and radiocarbon tests were performed, and macrobotanical materials (peat) were present. The only things absent were human and animal bones.

A few years after dismissing Sheguiandah as a nonsite, Griffin grudgingly accepted it as a recent site. In reading the report containing this admission, one gets the impression that the only tools found were those lying on or near the surface, and that the Sheguiandah site can best be dated with reference to peat bogs that formed after Manitoulin Island emerged from Lake Algonquin about 9,000 years ago. There is not the slightest hint that tools were found in glacial till and meltwater deposits. Griffin (1983, p. 247) stated, referring to Sheguiandah and two neighboring locales: “A reasonable estimate of the age of these sites would be from about 7000 to 6000 b.c., a time when there is a high pollen count from a nearby bog at Sheguiandah. These sites are almost certainly not earlier than the period of the lowest level of Lake Algonquin.”

In 1974, a similar approach was taken by P. L. Storck of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He listed Sheguiandah as a Shield Archaic site. The Shield Archaic is a recent, and broadly defined, Indian stone tool culture that spread across much of central Canada. Lee protested, pointing out the absurdity of treating the tools from Sheguiandah as if they all belonged to a single unit of recent historical time. To do so would mean ignoring the obviously stratified nature of the Sheguiandah site, with tools of distinct types found on the surface and at different levels below the surface—within glacial tills, meltwater deposits, and lacrustine sediments (T. E. Lee 1974).

The Shield Archaic culture was preceded by Paleo-Indian cultures in Canada, and it may thus be called a post-Paleo-Indian culture. According to Lee, the Paleo-Indian culture is represented at Sheguiandah by the upper projectile point level, lying above the glacial tills. The Shield Archaic came later, and might be represented by the tools found lying on the surface at Sheguiandah. In any case, both the Shield Archaic and Paleo-Indian cultures came after the glacial period. Disputing the Shield Archaic labeling of Sheguiandah, T. E. Lee (1974, p. 24) asked the following questions: “Where do we go to find post-Paleo-Indian in and beneath primary glacial tills, in meltwater deposits, and beneath boulder pavings? Shall we consult the geologists who extensively and intensively studied the site during four years while the trenches were open? Will their opinions carry weight in the face of a young archaeologist’s statement? Four of them—the most closely involved out of a hundred geologists who saw the trenches—Dr. Sanford, Dr. Antevs, Dr. Terasmae, and Dr. Liberty put the age of the site at ‘a minimum of 30,000 years.’ They did so on the advice of old Dr. Antevs, who warned them that the profession was not prepared to accept an older date, and for the most part would balk at 30,000 (as they did).”

In recent years, a minority of archeologists have begun to accept sites showing a human presence in North America over 30,000 years ago. It is noteworthy that few of these archeologists mention the Sheguiandah site, testifying to the effectiveness of the suppression of reports regarding it. An exception is W. N. Irving of the University of Toronto. As early as 1971, he was drawing attention to sites at Old Crow River and Edmonton that yielded deliberately fractured bone from the middle and early Wisconsin respectively (Irving 1971, pp. 69, 71). The

Edmonton site may have been late Sangamon interglacial.

Irving (1971, p. 71) then wrote: “I think our recent findings require that Sheguiandah be reexamined, for the investigations there were not completed. No one has yet suggested an age of 30,000 years or more for Sheguiandah, and I do not do so now, but I would like very much to know how old it really is, and what is there.” Irving was apparently unaware of Sanford’s work, or deliberately avoided saying anything about it.

The most favorable review of Sheguiandah we have yet been able to locate comes from José Luis Lorenzo, of the National Institute for Anthropology and History, in Mexico City. He wrote (Lorenzo 1978, p. 4): “The site is a complex one with several levels of likely occupancy due to the fact that there is a type of quartzite on the island that is an excellent material for artifacts. Various series of artifacts were also found mixed with glacial debris at the bottom of the stratigraphy. All the studies on the glacial ecology of the area indicate that the remains not mixed with till are later than 12,500 years ago, whereas those that were mixed go back over 30,000 years according to available data (Prest 1969; Flint 1971; Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973).”

It would seem that the Sheguiandah site deserves more attention than it has thus far received. The discoverer, Thomas E. Lee, certainly felt frustrated because of this. Looking back to the time when it first became apparent to him that stone implements were being found in glacial till, T. E. Lee (1968, p. 22) wrote: “At this point, a wiser man would have filled the trenches and crept away in the night, saying nothing. Books had been written, lectures had been given, pronouncements made, and armchairs comfortably filled. . . . Indeed, while visiting the site, one prominent anthropologist, after exclaiming in disbelief, ‘You aren’t finding anything down there? ’ and being told by the foreman, ‘The hell we aren’t! Get down in here and look for yourself!,’ urged me to forget all about what was in the glacial deposits and to concentrate upon the more recent materials overlying them. Today, 13 years after vigorous professional efforts succeeded in halting the investigation of that great site, the same arguments and distortions are spreading through the literature. . . . The sacred cow must be defended, and to hell with the facts.”

5.4.2 Lewisville: The Vendetta Goes On (Late Pleistocene)

In 1958, at a site near Lewisville, Texas, stone tools and burned animal bones were found in association with hearths. Later, as the excavation progressed, radiocarbon dates of at least 38,000 years were announced for charcoal from the hearths. Still later, a Clovis point was found. Herbert Alexander, who was a graduate student in archeology at the time, recalled how this sequence of finds was received. “On a number of occasions,” stated Alexander (1978, p. 20), “I had the opportunity to listen to faculty and visitors discuss their visits to this site. The opinions voiced at that time were that the hearths were man-made, and the faunal associations valid. Once the dates were announced, however, some opinions were changed and after the Clovis point was found, the process of picking and ignoring began in earnest. Those who had previously accepted the hearths and/or faunal associations began to question their memories.”

Finding a Clovis point in a layer 38,000 years old was disturbing, because orthodox anthropologists date the first Clovis points at 12,000 years, marking the entry of humans into North America. Some critics responded to the Lewisville find by alleging that the Clovis point had been planted as a hoax.

After mentioning a number of similar cases of ignored or derided discoveries, Alexander (1978, p. 22) recalled a suggestion that “in order to decide issues of early man, we may soon require attorneys for advocacy.” This may not be a bad idea in a field of science like archeology, where opinions determine the status of facts, and facts resolve into networks of interpretation. Attorneys and courts may aid archeologists in arriving more smoothly at the consensus among scholars that passes for the scientific truth in this field. But Alexander noted that a court system requires a jury, and the first question asked of a prospective juror is, “Have you made up your mind on the case?” Very few archeologists have not made up their minds on the date humans first entered North America.

5.4.3 Timlin, New York (Late Pleistocene)

The idea that Clovis-type projectile points represent the earliest tools in the New World is challenged by an excavation at the Timlin site in the Catskill mountains of New York State. In the mid-1970s, tools closely resembling the Upper Acheulean tools of Europe were found there. In the Old World, Acheulean tools are routinely attributed to Homo erectus . But such attribution is uncertain because skeletal remains are usually absent at tool sites. The Catskill tools have been dated to some 70,000 years b.p. on the basis of glacial geology. An interesting feature of the Timlin site is that investigators have been able to trace sequences of stone tool cultures from the “Upper Acheulean” level up to the recent Archaic period (Raemsch and Vernon 1977).

5.4.4 Hueyatlaco, Mexico (Middle Pleistocene)

In the 1960s, highly sophisticated stone tools (Figure 5.10) rivaling the best work of Cro-magnon man in Europe were unearthed by Juan Armenta Camacho and Cynthia Irwin-Williams at Hueyatlaco, near Valsequillo, 75 miles southeast of Mexico City. Stone tools of a somewhat cruder nature were found at the nearby site of El Horno. At both the Hueyatlaco and El Horno sites, the stratigraphic location of the implements does not seem to be in doubt. However, these artifacts do have a very controversial feature: a team of geologists, some working for the U.S. Geological Survey, gave them dates of about 250,000 years b.p. This team, working under a grant from the National Science Foundation,

Figure 5.10. Stone tools found at Hueyatlaco, Mexico, a site dated at about 250,000 years by a team from the United States Geological Survey.

consisted of Harold Malde and Virginia Steen-McIntyre, both of the U.S. Geological Survey, and the late Roald Fryxell of Washington State University.

These geologists said four different dating methods independently yielded an anomalously great age for the artifacts found near Valsequillo (Steen-McIntyre et al. 1981). The dating methods used were (1) uranium series dating, (2) fission track dating, (3) tephra hydration dating, and (4) study of mineral weathering. The carbon 14 and potassium-argon methods were not applicable at the Hueyatlaco and El Horno sites, and paleomagnetic measurements did not provide any useful information.

As might be imagined, the date of about 250,000 years obtained for Hueyatlaco by the U.S. Geological Survey team provoked a great deal of controversy. If accepted, it would have revolutionized not only New World anthropology but the whole picture of human origins. Human beings capable of making the sophisticated tools found at Hueyatlaco are not thought to have come into existence until about 100,000 years ago in Africa.

Of course, it is possible to dispute the dates reported by the U.S. Geological Survey team. But something more than a legitimate scientific disagreement over dating techniques appears to have been involved in the treatment of Hueyatlaco, as we shall see from the testimony of Virginia Steen-McIntyre. First, however, we shall examine how the anomalously old dates for the site were obtained.

5.4.4.1 The Uranium Series Dating of the Hueyatlaco Site

The principal technique used for dating materials from Hueyatlaco and El Horno was the uranium series method. The tests were performed by Barney J. Szabo of the U.S Geological Survey (Szabo et al. 1969). In this section, we will discuss Szabo’s results in some detail to show they support his dates. In particular, Szabo’s data suggest that leaching of uranium from the sample could not have produced erroneously old dates, as some have hypothesized. Readers uninterested in the technicalities may proceed to the next section.

The uranium series technique is based on the fact that each of several isotopes of uranium spontaneously breaks down into a distinct series of byproducts. At the Hueyatlaco and El Horno sites, Szabo was concerned with uranium 238 and uranium 235.

Uranium 238 decays to uranium 234, with a half life of 4.51 billion years, and uranium 234 decays to thorium 230, with a half life of 248,000 years. Thorium 230 in turn decays to radium 226, with a half life of 75,000 years (Considine 1976, p. 1866).

Uranium 235 decays to protactinium 231, with a half life of 707 million years, and protactinium 231 decays to actinium 227, with a half life of 32,500 years (Considine 1976, p. 1868).

The concept of a half life can be explained as follows. Say you start out with one pound of uranium 234, with a half life of 248,000 years. After 248,000 years, you would have a half pound of uranium 234, along with some thorium and radium. After another 248,000 years, you would have a quarter pound of uranium 234, with more thorium and radium, after another 248,000 years, an eighth of a pound of uranium and still more thorium and radium, and so on.

Small amounts of the uranium isotopes that form the starting points of our two series (uranium 238 and uranium 235) occur naturally in water, yet their decay products, thorium and protactinium respectively, are not found in water (Gowlett 1984, p. 86). Certain types of rocks (such as travertines, tufas, and concretions) form when inorganic carbonates precipitate out of water. During this precipitation, small quantities of uranium are included within the rock, but no thorium or protactinium. Hence, under ideal conditions, all of the thorium and protactinium found within such rocks comes from the decay of uranium isotopes. Also, bones that are soaked in uranium-bearing water tend to absorb uranium, which decays and produces byproducts.

Since the half lives of uranium, thorium, and protactinium are known, scientists say that by measuring the amounts of these elements present within a sample they can calculate the age of the sample. The more decay products present in the sample, the older it is. Determining the exact age of the sample is complicated by the fact that uranium and its byproducts may migrate in or out of the sample. An open system is one in which such migration occurs; a closed system is one in which migration does not occur.

Uranium series tests were applied to samples from Hueyatlaco and the nearby site of El Horno (Szabo et al. 1969). In obtaining these dates, both the uranium 234/thorium and the uranium 235/protactinium series were used, and they yielded results that were in substantial agreement with each other.

Calculations yielded dates of about 245,000 years b.p. for sample MB3 (a camel pelvis) from Unit C of the Hueyatlaco site. Unit C is the uppermost layer at Hueyatlaco, and was found to contain highly sophisticated stone tools. This layer is underlain by Unit E, which contained similar tools, and Unit I, which contained tools of a simpler mode of manufacture. Unit E and Unit I are separated by a stratigraphic discontinuity, which suggests that Unit I is considerably older than Unit E. In other words, 245,000 years is a minimum age for the site, the lower levels of which could be substantially older.

The uranium series method gave open and closed system estimates of over

280,000 years for sample MB8, a mastodon tooth, from El Horno. The El Horno site is at a lower stratigraphic level than any of the Hueyatlaco layers, and contained tools similar to those of Unit I, the lowest tool-bearing layer at Hueyatlaco. One wonders what remains of human culture might be found at levels lower, and hence older, than El Horno.

Szabo reported that he used calculations based on both open and closed systems in obtaining the above uranium series test results. Nevertheless, some scientists have suggested that these dates are in error because uranium and its decay products may have migrated into or out of the samples over the course of their interment to a greater extent than Szabo supposed. Cynthia Irwin-Williams, who originally discovered the tools, suggested that the real age of the samples should be around 25,000 years. But careful study of the data supplied by Szabo, who performed the uranium series tests, appears to rule out the hypothesis that migration caused falsely old dates.

There are two ways that a falsely old age can be obtained by uranium series dating—outward migration of uranium or inward migration of byproducts. If uranium has migrated out, this will result in a higher ratio of byproducts (thorium or protactinium) to uranium in a sample, and hence a greater than normal age for the sample. If byproducts (thorium or protactinium) have migrated in, that will, of course, also result in a higher than normal ratio of byproducts, and hence a greater age for the sample. This latter alternative is, however, highly unlikely since both thorium and protactinium are virtually insoluble in water.

Furthermore, thorium 230, the isotope produced by the decay of uranium 234, is always accompanied in nature by the far more common isotope thorium 232. So let us suppose that the Hueyatlaco bone samples are in fact very young. Let us also suppose, although it is quite unlikely, that thorium 230 and thorium 232 have migrated into the bone, giving a falsely old age. In this case, one would expect to find a low ratio of thorium 230 to thorium 232, because thorium 232 is more common than thorium 230. But it was reported (Szabo et al. 1969, p. 243) that the ratio of thorium 230 to thorium 232 in the samples under consideration was “unusually high,” which indicates that virtually all the thorium 230 measured in the samples was produced by the decay of uranium 234.

We have thus established that the uranium byproducts thorium and protactinium most probably did not migrate into the samples. That means that the hypothesis of a falsely old age depends on uranium migrating, or leaching, out of the samples.

In order to investigate the possibility of uranium leaching out of a sample, one of us (Thompson) analyzed two of several possible models—one in which leaching takes place at the end of the period of burial and one in which leaching is continuous throughout the period of burial. We shall now briefly discuss the results of these calculations.

Let us first consider the model in which leaching of uranium took place at the end of the period of burial. Taking bone sample MB3, we assumed, as claimed by Cynthia Irwin-Williams, that its real age is only 25,000 years instead of roughly 245,000 years. Then we computed the amount of leaching that must have taken place in order to give a date of 245,000 years for sample MB3, using the ratio of protactinium to uranium 235.

Sample MB3 was also originally dated at roughly 245,000 years using the ratio of thorium to uranium 234. So when we plugged the leaching factor for uranium 235 into the uranium 234 series equations we expected that the ratio of thorium to uranium 234 would yield a date of 25,000 years. Here we assumed that uranium 234 and uranium 235 are chemically identical (as atomic theory says they are) and that any leaching process would affect them equally. But the ratio of thorium to uranium 234, when calculated using the standard equations for radioactive decay, yielded an age of 52,451 years instead of 25,000 years. This result calls into question the leaching hypothesis.

A similar result was obtained when we reversed the order of the calculations. First we computed a uranium leaching factor using the ratio of thorium to uranium 234 and a sample age of 25,000 years. Using this uranium leaching factor, we then computed an age for sample MB3 based on the ratio of protactinium to uranium 235. This procedure yielded a date of 11,675 years rather than the expected 25,000 years.

Either way, these results are not consistent with the idea that the sample was deposited only 25,000 years ago, and that the leaching of uranium occurred fairly recently, at the end of the period of burial. According to our model, we should expect both sets of uranium series computations, done using the standard equations for radioactive decay, to yield results near 25,000 years. But they did not.

When we performed the computations assuming that leaching of uranium took place continuously rather than at the end of the period the bone sample was buried, similar results were obtained. In summary, the hypothesis that uranium leached out of the samples (either all at the end or continuously throughout the period of burial), and that the samples are therefore only 25,000 years old, is not consistent with the activity ratios reported for these samples.

At this point, one might raise the following objection. Admittedly, the date of 25,000 years suggested by Cynthia Irwin-Williams does not give good results in the above analysis. If we assume leaching of uranium 234 and uranium 235 took place, we would expect the computations for the thorium/uranium 234 and protactinium/uranium 235 ratios to yield the same results—25,000 years. But they did not. Then what about some other relatively young date? Could it be possible that using this alternative young date, good agreement might result?

We varied the assumed age for sample MB3, using the continuous leaching model, from 25,000 years through 250,000 years to see at what age the protactinium/uranium 235 age agreed best with the thorium/uranium 234 age. For assumed protactinium/uranium 235 ages from 25,000 up to 140,000 years the protactinium/uranium 235 ages disagreed with the thorium/uranium 234 ages by more than 30 percent. For a protactinium age of 180,000 years the thorium age disagreed by 20 percent, and the difference dropped as the assumed protactinium age increased. At 235,000 years the two differed by only .2 percent and at 245,000 years they differed by 3.1 percent. Thus the data reported by Szabo strongly support a date of around 235,000 years b.p. for the upper artifact-bearing layer (Unit C) at Hueyatlaco.

The same calculation was performed for sample MB8 using the continuous leaching model. The protactinium age was varied from 25,000 years through

370,000 years. We found that the thorium dates disagreed with the protactinium dates by more than 30 percent from 25,000 up to 260,000 years. At 300,000 years the two disagreed by 16 percent and this difference decreased to .32 percent at

355,000 years. Thus the activity ratios reported by Szabo strongly support an age of about 355,000 years for this sample from the site of El Horno, even if we assume, for the sake of argument, there was continuous leaching of uranium. Szabo pointed out that “sample MB8 was a tooth fragment from a butchered mastodon at El Horno, the oldest known site, and was therefore itself an artifact” (Szabo et al. 1969, p. 240).

Uranium series dating methods were also applied to bone samples from the nearby Caulapan site, yielding dates of about 20,000 years b.p. These agreed nicely with carbon 14 dates of 21,850 and 30,600 years from this site. We should note that the Caulapan carbon 14 date of 21,850 years applies to mollusk shells associated with the single artifact found at this site. Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1978, p. 22; 1981, p. 258) maintained that this was the only valid date for any Valsequillo artifact, and it should therefore be used for Hueyatlaco and El Horno as well. But the U.S. Geological Survey team could find no “geological basis by which the relation of the Caulapan deposits to Hueyatlaco can be determined” (Malde and Steen-McIntyre1981, p. 420). Therefore Irwin-Williams’s dating of the Hueyatlaco and El Horno sites at about 25,000 years is not justified.

5.4.4.2 Other Methods Used for Dating Hueyatlaco and El Horno

In addition to the uranium series method, the team of geologists used fission track counting, tephra hydration dating, and mineral weathering analysis to assign dates to the implement-bearing layers at Hueyatlaco and El Horno.

Fission track dating is based on the accumulation of radioactive decay tracks in volcanic mineral crystals as a function of time. The more tracks, the older the crystals. When the age of crystals in a volcanic deposit has thus been determined, it is possible to assign appropriate dates to implements or fossils found beneath the volcanic layer in question. The fission track method was applied to two volcanic layers (the Tetela mud and the Hueyatlaco ash), situated above the most recent Hueyatlaco artifacts. The fission track dates for these layers should give a minimum age for all of the Hueyatlaco tools. The fission track dates were 260,000 to 940,000 years for the Tetela mud and 170,000 to 570,000 years for the Hueyatlaco ash. The considerable ranges in the dates were attributed to statistical effects due to the small number of fission tracks that were counted (Malde and Steen-McIntyre 1981, p. 419). The date ranges for the two volcanic layers overlap in the interval from 260,000 years to 570,000 years b.p. Tephra hydration dating is a relatively new technique. It relies on the fact that volcanic glass, or tephra, slowly absorbs water. For this method to be feasible, it is necessary to have independently dated control samples of volcanic glass with the same chemical properties and geological situation as the samples to be dated. In this case, control samples were taken from the nearby La Malinche volcano. The method gave a date of about 250,000 years b.p. for tephra deposits associated with the Hueyatlaco artifacts (Steen-McIntyre et al. 1981, p. 13).

The final method of dating, the study of the weathering of a volcanic mineral, hypersthene, gives only a relative measure of age. As time passes, exposed crystals of this mineral are slowly etched, leaving a “picket fence” profile when viewed under a microscope. At the nearby human occupation site of Tlapacoya, this etching was rare and incipient in volcanic deposits dated by carbon 14 to about 23,000 years b.p. In contrast, the etching was pronounced in volcanic deposits associated with the Hueyatlaco artifacts. This suggested that the Hueyatlaco artifacts must have an age considerably greater than 23,000 years (Steen-McIntyre et al. 1981, p. 11).

A final consideration in the dating of the Hueyatlaco artifacts is that they were found buried beneath at least 10 meters (33 feet) of sediment. Geological study showed that these strata had to accumulate before being cut by the nearby Atoyac River, which has carved a valley 50 meters (164 feet) in depth (SteenMcIntyre et al. 1981, p. 10).

In other words, the geological history of the site would go something like this. The artifacts were left on an ancient land surface. Layers of sediment were deposited over them. Then the river began to cut through the layers of sediment.

Given this sequence, it is possible to estimate the age of the tools. Two elements are required. The first is the time required to deposit at least 10 meters of sediments over the tools. The second is the time that the river took to cut its valley, which is now 50 meters deep. If one could estimate the time it took the river to cut its valley and then add the time it took to deposit at least 10 meters of sediments over the tools, then one would have a rough date for the tools.

Since the valley and its side channels have gentle slopes, it is not likely that the river has exhibited an unusually high rate of erosion. But even if we assume a rather high rate of erosion, as in the Colorado River valley, the river Atoyac would have required around 150,000 years to carve out its present channel (SteenMcIntyre et al. 1981, p. 10). Add to this the time originally required to deposit 10 or more meters of sediment over the tools, and it can thus be seen that the geology of Hueyatlaco and the Rio Atoyac valley corroborates the ancient date obtained by the four dating methods discussed previously.

We have examined in some detail the cases of Hueyatlaco and El Horno in order to show that the dates for stone tools from these sites were solidly based on serious scientific analysis, more rigorous than in many accepted dating studies. However, due to the anomalous character of the 250,000-year figure, this dating has proven to be extremely controversial. The daters declared themselves to be “painfully aware” of the dilemma they had caused and “perplexed” about how to resolve it. Roald Fryxell said: “We have no reason to suppose that over decades, actually hundreds of years, of research in archaeology in the Old and New World our understanding of human prehistory is so inaccurate that we suddenly discover that our past understanding is all wrong. . . . On the other hand, the more geological information we’ve accumulated, the more difficult it is to explain how multiple methods of dating which are independent of each other might be in error by the same magnitude” (Denver Post, November 13, 1973).

According to Cynthia Irwin-Williams, the date of 250,000 years was impossible: “These tools surely were not in use at Valsequillo more than 200,000 years before the date generally accepted for development of analogous stone tools in the Old World, nor indeed more than 150,000 years before the appearance of Homo sapiens” (Szabo et al. 1969, p. 241).

Negative responses to the dating of the Valsequillo sites of Hueyatlaco and El Horno arise from acceptance of a theory of human evolution that was established by unwarranted elimination of extensive evidence for the extreme antiquity of humans in both the Old and New Worlds. In light of the total evidence, a date of 250,000 years b.p. for sophisticated stone tools is not greatly surprising. Ironically, in the treatment of the Valsequillo findings by the scientific community, we see the same tendency to suppress unwanted evidence that eliminated the earlier material and thereby rendered the Valsequillo dates unbelievable.

5.4.4.3 Negative Reception of the Hueyatlaco Evidence

Virginia Steen-McIntyre has sent us some of her correspondence, which documents the difficulties she had in publishing her findings on Hueyatlaco. We shall now introduce excerpts from this correspondence. Our purpose in doing so is to clarify how anomalous evidence is treated by the scientific community.

We have already shown that much evidence for the presence of anatomically and culturally modern humans in the Tertiary epoch was suppressed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly because it conflicted with emerging theories of human evolution. Some might object that we have misinterpreted what went on in that period, taking the normal scientific procedures scientists use in differentiating good evidence from bad as some kind of diabolical plot to distort the truth. Others will maintain that even if good evidence was in fact rejected for reasons that appear unscientific in hindsight, this just does not happen any more. But the case of Hueyatlaco (along with Texas Street, Sheguiandah, Calico, and Lewisville) demonstrates otherwise.

Among the social processes that discourage acceptance and reporting of anomalous evidence are ridicule and gossip, including attacks on character and accusations of incompetence. Furthermore, discoveries have almost no impact in the world of science unless they are published in standard journals. The editorial process, especially the practice of anonymous peer review, often presents an insurmountable obstacle. Some submissions are met with a wall of silence. Others are shunted around for months, from editor to editor. Sometimes manuscripts are mysteriously lost in the shuffle. And while positive reports of anomalous evidence are subjected to protracted review and/or rejection, negative critiques are sometimes rushed into print. Occasionally, a maverick report eventually does appear in a journal, but only after it has gone through such extensive modification that the original message has become totally obscured—by editorial deletions and, in some cases, rewriting of data.

Thomas E. Lee’s attempts to get articles about Sheguiandah published (Section 5.4.1.2) exemplify what can happen. Also, we heard from a paleontologist at the San Diego Museum of Natural History that a forthcoming paper by other researchers on an incised elephant bone found in the Anza-Borrego Desert of southern California and dated at over 250,000 years would never make it past peer review (Section 2.3). The word was out that the article was coming, and competent authorities had already decided what would happen to it.

Virginia Steen-McIntyre experienced many of the above-mentioned social pressures and obstacles. In a note to a colleague (July 10, 1976), she stated: “I had found out through backfence gossip that Hal [Malde], Roald [Fryxell], and I are considered opportunists and publicity seekers in some circles, because of Hueyatlaco, and I am still smarting from the blow.”

The publication of a paper by Steen-McIntyre and her colleagues on Hueyatlaco was inexplicably held up for years. The paper was first presented in 1975 at a joint meeting of the Southwestern Anthropological Association and the Societe Mexicana de Antropologia and was to appear in a symposium volume. Four years later, Steen-McIntyre wrote (March 29, 1979) to H. J. Fullbright of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, one of the editors of the forever forthcoming book: “We received your name and address from Dave Snow, who said you were the one to contact about the publication date for the SWAA-SMA symposium volume. We hope that it is soon! I personally have been put in an awkward position by the publication delay. Our joint article on the Hueyatlaco site is a real bombshell. It would place man in the New World 10x earlier than many archaeologists would like to believe. Worse, the bifacial tools that were found in situ are thought by most to be a sign of H. sapiens. According to present theory, H.s. had not even evolved at that time, and certainly not in the New World.”

Steen-McIntyre continued, explaining: “Archaeologists are in a considerable uproar over Hueyatlaco—they refuse even to consider it. I’ve learned from second-hand sources that I’m considered by various members of the profession to be 1) incompetent; 2) a news monger; 3) an opportunist; 4) dishonest; 5) a fool. Obviously, none of these opinions is helping my professional reputation! My only hope to clear my name is to get the Hueyatlaco article into print so that folks can judge the evidence for themselves. (Geologists have no trouble with it.) The longer the delay, the more archaeologists will be convinced that the whole thing is just a crass attempt of another egomaniac for publicity. I’m quite certain the archaeologist who was in charge of the excavations and who no longer corresponds with me feels this way.”

Steen-McIntyre, upon receiving no answer to this and other requests for information, withdrew the article. Later she got a letter from Roger A. Morris of Los Alamos, who explained that he had taken the liberty of opening a letter addressed to Fullbright, who had been transferred to another group of researchers. Morris said he would return her manuscript, but it never came.

A year later, Steen-McIntyre wrote (February 8, 1980) to Steve Porter, editor of Quaternary Research, about having her article printed. She first explained its status. “It’s been languishing down in Los Alamos for almost five years, awaiting publication as part of a symposium volume. During that time I have written or called a dozen times to learn the status of the volume only to receive no response. (The original editor was always ‘in conference’ or ‘out of the office’ or would ‘return my call,’ which he never did.) In the meantime, there’s been a lot of false information circulated about the site and the work we did there in 1973. Especially damaging is an article by Cynthia Irwin-Williams published in 1978 (Summary of archaeological evidence from the Valsequillo Region, Puebla, Mexico, in Cultural Continuity in Mesoamerica, Brownman, D.L. ed., Mouton).

In it she discounts Szabo’s uranium-series dates (concordant) on butchered bone supplied by herself because she doesn’t believe in the method. She does the same with Naeser’s 2 sigma zircon fission track dates for two tephra layers that we proved by a cross-trench and direct tracing of the stratigraphy to overlie beds exposed in the archaeological trenches. Needless to say, she never showed us a draft of this ms or even told us she planned to publish anything on Hueyatlaco!”

Steen-McIntyre added: “The ms I’d like to submit gives the geologic evidence. It’s pretty clear-cut, and if it weren’t for the fact a lot of anthropology textbooks will have to be rewritten, I don’t think we would have had any problems getting the archaeologists to accept it. As it is, no anthro journal will touch it with a ten foot pole. Right now I don’t even have a copy to send you. The editor’s copy is still in Santa Fe and my working copy disappeared into the office of Science 80 (AAAS) months ago and, despite howls and threats, has yet to be returned.”

Steve Porter wrote to Steen-McIntyre (February 25, 1980), replying that he would consider the controversial article for publication. But he said he could “well imagine that objective reviews may be a bit difficult to obtain from certain archaeologists.” The usual procedure in scientific publishing is for an article to be submitted to several other scientists for peer review. It is not hard to imagine how an entrenched scientific orthodoxy could manipulate this process to keep unwanted information out of scientific journals. The manner in which reports by Thomas E. Lee about the Sheguiandah site were kept out of standard publications provides a good example of this (Section 5.4.1.2).

Steen-McIntyre wrote to Porter (March 4, 1980): “Often it is next to impossible to get a controversial paper published that even indirectly challenges current archaeological dogma; George Carter is a case in point!” In a letter to Steen-McIntyre, Carter had called the dominant clique of New World archeologists “priests of the High Doctrine” and complained that they bragged among themselves about having blocked him from publishing in the major journals. He compared his treatment to a modern Inquisition. Steen-McIntyre then stated: “I had thought to circumvent these ‘true believers’ by publishing in an obscure symposium volume, but no such luck.”

The competence of Steen-McIntyre’s associates was also called into question. Steen-McIntyre informed Porter: “there’s the old saw that Fryx wasn’t in his right mind when he did the work. Those folks forget that I saw the stratigraphy too, and once you get into a cross-trench, it was relatively simple, thanks to a magnesium-stained bed that traced on the excavation wall like a pencil mark!”

On March 30, 1981, Steen-McIntyre wrote to Estella Leopold, the associate editor of Quaternary Research: “The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of ‘Enigmatic Data,’ data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking. Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn’t realize the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our thought the current theory of human evolution had become. Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory, period. Their reasoning is circular. H. sapiens sapiens evolved ca. 30,000–50,000 years ago in Eurasia. Therefore any H.s.s. tools 250,000 years old found in Mexico are impossible because H.s.s. evolved ca 30,000– . . . etc. Such thinking makes for self-satisfied archaeologists but lousy science!”

As demonstrated in this book, the stone tools of Hueyatlaco are not an isolated example of “impossible” evidence that challenges the recent origin of Homo sapiens by a Darwinian evolutionary process. We have already discussed numerous examples of such impossible evidence from the Pliocene, Miocene, and earlier periods. And there is much more to come in the remainder of this volume. We have simply paused briefly in order to demonstrate that the suppression of such evidence did not end with the nineteenth century—it has continued to the present day. We also take the current examples of suppression of anomalous evidence as confirmation that our interpretation of what went on in the nineteenth century (and early twentieth century) is in fact correct.

On May 18, 1981, Steen-McIntyre wrote to Estella Leopold and Steve Porter about “suppression of data on Hueyatlaco and other possible Pre-Wisconsinian Early Man sites in the New World by unethical means.” She told how she had submitted a general paper on her dating techniques to be included in a volume in a scientific series. Steen-McIntyre then learned from the editor that “he had decided to ‘drastically edit’ this manuscript, essentially by deleting most of the section on Hueyatlaco and by treating the remainder in a negative way.” In her letter to Leopold and Porter, Steen-McIntyre stated: “I protested strongly, and he agreed to reinsert some of the deleted material, but only in a way that will hold both me and my research up for laughter and ridicule.” In a note to our researcher, Steve Bernath, dated January 29, 1989, Steen-McIntyre explained that the editor had, in the course of his drastic editing, altered one of her data tables. According to Steen-McIntyre: “when I threatened him he replaced the missing material [in the text] but forgot to retype the table.”

Steen-McIntyre’s case is not unique. Some American scientists reporting anomalous evidence for a human presence in North America have found it necessary to publish overseas. Steen-McIntyre said in her letter to Leopold and Porter that “Roy Schlemon, a pedologist who has helped date Calico and who is working at other sites in Southern California . . . had been publishing outside the country.” A pedologist is a scientist who studies soils.

Eventually, Quaternary Research (1981) published an article by Virginia Steen-McIntyre, Roald Fryxell, and Harold E. Malde. It upheld an age of 250,000 years for the Hueyatlaco site. Of course, it is always possible to raise objections to archeological dates, and Cynthia Irwin-Williams (1981) did so in a letter responding to Steen-McIntyre, Fryxell, and Malde. Her objections were answered point for point in a counter-letter (Malde and Steen-McIntyre 1981). But Irwin-Williams did not relent. She, and the American archeological community in general, have continued to reject the dating of Hueyatlaco carried out by Steen-McIntyre and her colleagues on the U.S. Geological Survey team.

As in the case of Sheguiandah, the anomalous findings at Hueyatlaco resulted in personal abuse and professional penalties for those who dared to present and defend them in the scientific literature. This involved withholding of funds and loss of job, facilities, and reputation for at least one of the geologists involved in the dating project (Steen-McIntyre, personal communication).

The case of Virginia Steen-McIntyre opens a rare window into the actual social processes of data suppression in paleoanthropology, processes that involve a great deal of hurt and conflict. In general, however, this goes on behind the scenes, and the public sees only the end result—the carefully edited journals and books that have passed the censors.

A final note—we ourselves once tried to secure permission to reproduce photographs of the Hueyatlaco artifacts in a publication. We were informed that permission would be granted only if we gave a date of no more than 30,000 years for the artifacts. But permission would be denied if we intended to cite a “lunatic fringe date” of 250,000 years. We grant that the 250,000-year date may be wrong. But is it really appropriate to apply the term “lunatic fringe” to studies such as the one carried out by Steen-McIntyre and her colleagues?

5.4.5 Sandia Cave, New Mexico (Middle Pleistocene)

In 1975, quite by accident, Virginia-Steen McIntyre learned of the existence of another site with an impossibly early date for stone tools in North America— Sandia Cave, New Mexico, U.S.A., where the implements, of advanced type (Folsom points), were discovered beneath a layer of stalagmite considered to be 250,000 years old. One such tool is shown in Figure 5.11.

In a letter to Henry P. Schwartz, the Canadian geologist who had dated the stalagmite, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote (July 10, 1976): “For the life of me, I can’t remember if it was you or one of your colleagues I talked to at the 1975 Penrose Conference (Mammoth Lakes, California). The fellow I spoke to as we waited in line for lunch mentioned a uranium series date on the stalagmite layer above artifacts at Sandia Cave that was very upsetting to him—it disagreed violently with the commonly held hypothesis for the date of entry of man into the New World. When he mentioned a date of a quarter million years or thereabouts, I nearly dropped my tray. Not so much in shock at the age, but that this date agreed so well with dates we have on a controversial Early Man site in Central Mexico. . . . Needless to say, I’d be interested to learn more about your date and your feelings about it!” According to Steen-McIntyre, she did not receive an answer to this letter.

After writing to the chief archeological investigator at the Sandia site for information about the dating, Steen-McIntyre received this reply (July 2, 1976): “I hope you don’t use this ‘can of worms’ to prove anything until after we have had a chance to evaluate it.”

Figure 5.11. A Folsom blade embedded in the lower surface of a travertine crust from Sandia Cave, New Mexico (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. 99, no. 23, plate 7). The layer of travertine is said to be 250,000 years old.

Four years later, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote (February 8, 1980) in a letter to Steve Porter, editor of Quaternary Research: “Did you know they now have a 250,000 year date on the stalagmite layer in Sandia Cave, N.M., the one that sealed off sediments that contained leaf-shaped points and fire hearths? I’ve been trying to get more information out of Vance Haynes, who collected the samples, and Dr. Schwarz at McMaster [University], who ran the date, but so far no luck.”

Steen-McIntyre sent us some reports and photos of the Sandia artifacts and said in an accompanying note: “Talk about a study in frustration! Read the enclosed, then look at that picture of the ‘folsom’ blade imbedded in the travertine crust (stalagmite layer, 250,000 years). The geochemists are sure of their date (oral communication, GSA meeting, 1978), but archaeologists have convinced them the artifacts and charcoal lenses beneath the travertine are the result of rodent activity. The archaeologists who have seen the evidence are sure of the presence of artifacts beneath the crust, but believe the date is wrong! But what about the artifacts cemented in the crust?”

The Sandia Cave discoveries, along with the finds made at Hueyatlaco (Section 5.4.4), Calico (Section 3.8.3), and Toca da Esperança (Section 3.8.4), strongly suggest a human presence over 200,000 years ago in the Americas. This challenges not only the orthodox time estimate for the entry of Homo sapiens into North America (12,000 years ago) but also the whole picture of human evolution, which has Homo sapiens arising from Homo erectus in Africa about 100,000 years ago.

5.5 Neolithic Tools From The Tertiary Auriferous Gravels Of California

In 1849, gold was discovered in the gravels of ancient riverbeds on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in central California, drawing hordes of rowdy adventurers to places like Brandy City, Last Chance, Lost Camp, You Bet, and Poker Flat. At first, solitary miners panned for flakes and nuggets in the gravels that had found their way into the present stream beds. But soon gold-mining companies brought more extensive resources into play, some sinking shafts into mountainsides, following the gravel deposits wherever they led, while others washed the auriferous (gold-bearing) gravels from hillsides with high pressure jets of water.

Occasionally, the miners would find stone artifacts, and, more rarely, human fossils (Section 6.2.6). Altogether, miners found hundreds of stone implements—mortars, pestles, platters, grinders, and so forth. Many of the specimens found their way into the collection of Mr. C. D. Voy, a part-time employee of the California Geological Survey. Voy’s collection eventually came into the possession of the University of California, and the most significant artifacts were reported to the scientific community by J. D. Whitney, then the state geologist of California.

The finds occurred in three situations: (1) in surface deposits of gravel; (2) in gravels washed from hillsides by hydraulic mining; and (3) in underground deposits of gravel reached by mine shafts and tunnels. The artifacts from surface deposits and hydraulic mining were of doubtful age, but the artifacts from deep mine shafts and tunnels could be more securely dated because the gold-bearing gravels lay underneath thick layers of volcanic material.

5.5.1 The Age of the Auriferous Gravels

J. D. Whitney thought the geological evidence indicated the auriferous gravels, and the sophisticated stone tools found in them, were at least Pliocene in age. But modern geologists think some of the gravel deposits, which lie beneath volcanic formations, are much older.

According to Paul C. Bateman and Clyde Wahrhaftig (1966), R. N. Norris (1976), and William B. Clark (1979), the majority of the gold-bearing gravels were laid down in stream channels during the Eocene and Early Oligocene. These are called the prevolcanic auriferous gravels. During the Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, volcanic activity in the same region covered some of the auriferous gravels with deposits of rhyolite, andesite, and latite.

In particular, widespread andesitic mudflows and conglomerates were deposited during the Miocene. These attained a considerable thickness, varying from more than 3,000 feet along the crest of the Sierras to 500 feet in the foothills. The volcanic flows were so extensive that they almost completely buried the bedrock landscape of the northern Sierra Nevada mountain region.

Although intense at times, the volcanic activity in the Sierra Nevada Mountains was not continuous, allowing rivers to carve new channels and canyons. These rivers often redistributed old gravels laid down in the Eocene and Early Oligocene periods. So below the volcanic formations, the most recent of which are Early Pleistocene (Jenkins 1970, p. 25), there can now be found auriferous gravel deposits that were laid down in stream beds during the Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene periods. Over the course of time, rivers carved deep channels up to a couple of thousand feet below the level of the prevolcanic gravels. This allowed Gold Rush miners to reach the auriferous gravels by digging horizontal tunnels into the sides of the channels. The advanced stone tools found in these tunnels could be from Eocene to Pliocene in age.

5.5.2 Discoveries of Doubtful Age

Before discussing the most significant discoveries, the ones made in mines extending into gold-bearing gravels beneath ancient lava flows, let us briefly examine why it is not possible to attribute any great age to the artifacts found elsewhere in the gold mining region.

Some stone implements were found in the sluices of the hydraulic mines, where powerful jets of water were directed at entire hillsides. William H. Holmes, of the Smithsonian Institution, pointed out that recently abandoned Indian villages were often found on the slopes above the open mines and that it was quite possible that modern stone implements were washed into the Tertiary gravels below (1899, p. 445).

Other artifacts were found deep within surface deposits of Tertiary gravel. For example, at Gold Springs, a little west of Columbia, Mr. Lot Cannell stated that he discovered stone mortars and platters along with the bones and teeth of mastodons in gold-bearing gravels, approximately 90 feet below the surface (Whitney 1880, p. 262). At first glance, this discovery, so deep in the gravel, promises extreme antiquity. After all, mastodons existed in North America as far back as the Miocene.

But investigators such as William J. Sinclair determined that implements found deep in such deposits might be recent. Sinclair (1908, p. 112) wrote: “The underlying Carboniferous limestone has been eroded into fantastic shapes by percolating waters during or after the deposition of the auriferous wash. . . . In a limestone region with underground drainage, it is quite apparent that implements of human manufacture which happened to be scattered on the surface would stand an excellent chance of reaching deeper levels through the many sink holes affording drainage ways to surface waters.”

So although the Gold Springs gravel itself might have been Tertiary in age it is possible, in light of Sinclair’s observations about sinkholes, that the implements found deep in the gravels might have worked their way down from the surface in relatively recent times. Therefore, all we can safely conclude is that the stone implements found at Gold Springs might be anywhere from several million to several thousand years old. The same is true of discoveries made at Kincaid Flat, Oregon Bar, and several other localities where the gold-bearing gravels were not capped by volcanic deposits of known age.

5.5.3 Tuolumne Table Mountain