Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Finds from mine shafts can be dated more securely than those from hydraulic mines and surface deposits of gravel. Many shafts were sunk at Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. Whitney and others reported that miners found stone tools and human bones (Section 6.2.6) there, in the gold-bearing gravels sealed beneath thick layers of a volcanic material called latite. In many cases, the mine shafts extended horizontally for hundreds of feet beneath the latite cap at a depth of over 100 feet below the latite (Figure 5.12).

Tuolumne Table Mountain was created by a massive latite flow which moved down the Cataract Channel, a Miocene course of the Stanislaus River, forcing the river into a new channel. According to R. M. Norris (1976, p. 43), the latite lava cap is 9 million years old and is 300 feet thick in the vicinity of the town of Sonora. Slemmons (1966, p. 200) gave dates for the latite cap and underlying strata at Tuolumne Table Mountain (Table 5.3).

Discoveries from the auriferous gravels just above the bedrock are probably 33.2 to 55 million years old, but discoveries from auriferous gravels whose positions are not specified may be anywhere from 9 to 55 million years old.

Figure 5.12. Side view of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, California, showing mines penetrating into Tertiary gravel deposits beneath the lava cap, shown in black (Holmes 1899, p. 450).

TABLE 5.3

Age of Strata at Tuolumne Table Mountain

Age (millions of years)

Description of Formation

9.0

9.0–21.1

21.1–33.2

33.2–55.0

>55.0

Table Mountain latite member

Andesitic tuffs, breccias, and sediments

Rhyolite tuffs

Prevolcanic auriferous gravels

Bedrock

5.5.4 Dr. Snell’s Collection

The more important discoveries from Tuolumne Table Mountain add up to a considerable weight of evidence. Whitney personally examined a collection of Tuolumne Table Mountain artifacts belonging to Dr. Perez Snell, of Sonora, California. About this collection of artifacts, Whitney (1880, p. 264) stated: “In Dr. Snell’s collection . . . there were several objects which were marked as having come ‘from under Table Mountain.’” C. D. Voy said: “Among them was a piece of stone apparently designed as a handle for a bow. It was made of silicious slate and had little notches at the end, which appear to have been formed for tying the stone to the bow. There were also one or two spear heads, from six to eight inches long, and several scoops or ladles, with well shaped handles” (Whitney 1880, p. 264).

As can be seen from Whitney’s statements about Dr. Snell’s collection, there is not much in the way of direct testimony about the discoverers and original stratigraphic positions of the implements. There was, however, one exception. “This was,” wrote Whitney (1880, p. 264), “a stone muller, or some kind of utensil which had apparently been used for grinding. It was carefully examined by the writer, and recognized as unquestionably of artificial origin. In regard to this implement Dr. Snell informed the writer that he took it with his own hands from a car-load of ‘dirt’ coming out from under Table Mountain.” A human jaw, inspected by Whitney, was also present in the collection of Dr. Snell. The jaw was given to Dr. Snell by miners, who claimed that the jaw had came from the gravels beneath the basalt cap at Table Mountain in Tuolumne County (Becker 1891, p. 193).

5.5.5 The Walton Mortar

A better-documented discovery from Tuolumne Table Mountain was made by Mr. Albert G. Walton, one of the owners of the Valentine claim. Walton found a stone mortar, 15 inches in diameter, in gold-bearing gravels 180 feet below the surface and also beneath the latite cap. Significantly, the find of the mortar occurred in a “drift,” a mine passageway leading horizontally from the bottom of the main vertical shaft of the Valentine mine. This tends to rule out the possibility that the mortar might have fallen in from above. Furthermore, the vertical shaft “was boarded up to the top, so that nothing could have fallen in from the surface during the working under ground” (Whitney 1880, p. 265). In fact, Walton, who found the mortar, was the carpenter responsible for timbering the shaft. A piece of a fossil human skull was also recovered from the Valentine mine (Section

6.2.6.3).

William J. Sinclair (1908, p. 115) later claimed that many of the drift tunnels from other mines near the Valentine shaft were connected. Sinclair granted that the Valentine vertical shaft may have been, as Whitney stated, securely boarded up to the top, so that nothing could fall in from the surface. But he proposed that objects still could have found their way into the Valentine underground tunnel from some other tunnels. Sinclair did not, however, offer any specific evidence that any tunnels were connected with the Valentine drift tunnels at the time the discoveries were made. In fact, Sinclair admitted that when he visited the area in 1902 he was not even able to find the Valentine shaft. It appears that Sinclair simply used his vague retrospective conjectures about possible invalidating circumstances to dismiss Walton’s report of his discovery. Operating in this manner, one could find good reason to dismiss any paleoanthropological discovery ever made.

Another author suggested that prehistoric miners, perhaps from the known culture centers in Mexico or Central America, left the stone artifacts in the course of gold-mining operations conducted in California (Southall 1882, p. 197). We are, however, aware of only a single report of a mine existing before the California Gold Rush of the 1850s. This one mine (Southall 1882, p. 198) is insufficient to explain mortars and other implements found in many separated locations. The proposal that there may have been numerous mines that were collapsed and therefore escaped detection is highly improbable. The Gold Rush miners, being expert in such matters, would most likely have detected them, especially since collapsed mine shafts would have posed a threat to their lives in the form of cave-ins.

Some critics have contended that the mortars were carried by Indians into mines dug during the Gold Rush days. But the Indians of those times did not possess portable mortars (Section 5.5.13). And even if they did possess portable mortars, it is unlikely they would have carried them into the mines. Mortars were generally used for the grinding of raw acorns, a laborious, time-consuming task not likely to have been performed in the cramped, dark, dangerous confines of a working mine shaft.

The mortars found in the mines do resemble those used by some California Indians in the recent past. But the mortars from the mines also resemble those made by primitive people in other parts of the world, at various times in the past. In fact, it is likely that any human beings, living anywhere and at any time, would, when faced with the task of making grinding tools, come up with tools very much like the mortars and pestles from the mines. Therefore, the resemblance of the mortars found in the mines to those used by California Indians in recent times is not proof the mortars from the mines are also recent. They could have been made, as the evidence suggests, millions of years ago.

5.5.6 The Carvin Hatchet

Another find at Tuolumne Table Mountain was reported by James Carvin in 1871: “This is to certify that I, the undersigned, did about the year 1858, dig out of some mining claims known as the Stanislaus Company, situated in Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, opposite O’Byrn’s Ferry, on the Stanislaus River, a stone hatchet . . . with a hole through it for a handle, near the middle. Its size was four inches across the edge, and length about six inches. It had evidently been made by human hands. The above relic was found from sixty to seventy-five feet from the surface in gravel, under the basalt, and about 300 feet from the mouth of the tunnel. There were also some mortars found, at about the same time and place” (Whitney 1880, pp. 274–275).

5.5.7 The Stevens Stone Bead

In 1870, Oliver W. Stevens submitted the following notarized affidavit: “This is to certify that I, the undersigned, did about the year 1853, visit the Sonora Tunnel, situated at and in Table Mountain, about one half a mile north and west of Shaw’s Flat, and at that time there was a car-load of auriferous gravel coming out of said Sonora Tunnel. And I, the undersigned, did pick out of said gravel (which came from under the basalt and out of the tunnel about two hundred feet in, at the depth of about one hundred and twenty-five feet) a mastodon tooth in a good state of preservation, which afterwards was partly broken, in the hollow of which was sulphuret of iron [iron sulfide, or pyrite]. And at the same time I found with it some relic that resembled a large stone bead, made perhaps of alabaster, about one and a half inches long, and about one and one fourth inches in diameter, with a hole through it one fourth of an inch in size, which no doubt had been used, some time, to put a string through. I also certify that I gave the specimens to C. D. Voy, about the year 1864, to put in his collection” (Whitney 1880, p. 266). Voy visited the site and confirmed the geological details.

Whitney (1880, p. 266) later wrote: “The bead was carefully examined by the writer. It is correctly described above, except that the material of which it is made is white marble, not alabaster. It had evidently been much handled, and unfortunately cleaned of the incrusting material; but quite distinct traces of a former filling of the hole with sulphuret of iron were still visible. The mastodon tooth bore, also, as stated by Mr. Stevens, evident marks of an incrustation of the same mineral; and it may be added that several of the bones, which are said to have come from under Table Mountain, have been found to have more or less abundant crystallizations of pyrites in the cellular portions. There can be no question of the artificial character of the so-called bead. It is regularly and symmetrically shaped, and looks as if intended for an ornament.”

William J. Sinclair, of the University of California, objected (1908, p. 115): “Little dependence, as an evidence of antiquity, can be placed on the presence of pyrite in the hollow of the marble bead reported by Whitney from the gravels of this mine. The rapidity with which secondary pyrite forms is well known.”

But the real significance of Whitney’s remark about the presence of pyrite in the hollow of the bead is not that it proves, in and of itself, great age. Instead, it confirms that the bead examined by Whitney was the same one described by Stevens. And Stevens testified in his affidavit that he personally found the bead in a carload of rock and gravel from deep within the mine, below the latite cap of Table Mountain. In the absence of more exact information, this means that the bead would be at least 9 million years old and perhaps as much as 55 million years old.

But Sinclair (1908, pp. 115–116) objected: “If this degree of association with the gravel is to be accepted as proof of antiquity, we would be justified in supposing that any object of recent manufacture acquired under similar circumstances was as old as the gravels.”

Of course, if one were convinced that an object was “of recent manufacture,” then no circumstance of acquisition whatsoever—even the most perfect—would compel one to suppose it was as old as the gravels. But if the object provided no clear evidence for its date of manufacture, then circumstances of acquisition like those encountered in the case of the marble bead would argue strongly in favor of an age equivalent to that of the Tertiary gravels.

So here we have a typical example of the unfair treatment of anomalous evidence. Sinclair attempted to raise unreasonable doubt and suspicion about the origin of the white marble bead, even though the initial report that it came from Tertiary gold-bearing deposits was credible. But in the cases of many accepted discoveries, the circumstances of discovery are similar to that of the marble bead.

For example, at Border Cave in South Africa, Homo sapiens sapiens fossils were taken from piles of rock excavated from mines years earlier. The fossils were then assigned dates of about 100,000 years, principally because of their association with certain kinds of rock. The scientists who assigned the dates wrote: “Border Cave 1 and 2 comprise an adult male cranial vault and a partial adult female mandible respectively. These fragments were all displaced from their original contexts in 1940 during the removal of ‘fertilizer’ from Horton’s Pit. . . . Cooke et al. claimed that the character of the soil adhesions in small interstices of the skull was only matched by a distinctive ‘chocolate coloured layer’ corresponding to the base of our [layer] IGBS.LR” (Beaumont et al. 1978, p. 414).

The Heidelberg jaw was discovered by workmen in a gravel pit, with no scientist present, and was assigned a Middle Pleistocene date. Furthermore, most African hominid fossils, including those of Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), were discovered on the surface and were assigned specific dates because of their loose association with certain exposed strata. In Java, also, most of the Homo erectus discoveries occurred on the surface, and, in addition, they were found by paid native collectors, who shipped the fossils in crates to distant scientists for study.

If Sinclair’s strict standards were to be applied to these finds, they also should have to be rejected as evidence for hominids of any particular antiquity. In other words, most of the evidence upon which the current picture of human evolution is based would have to be thrown out.

And this takes us back to the central theme of this book. We are not promoting any particular discovery or set of discoveries. Rather, we are looking at the entire body of evidence relating to human origins and antiquity and asking for consistent application of standards for acceptance and rejection of evidence. Our historical survey has led us to conclude that up to now scientists have not impartially applied such standards. This raises some legitimate doubts about the trustworthiness of the evolutionary lineages that have been erected upon such a shaky evidential foundation.

Indeed, we find that when all the available evidence is considered impartially, an evolutionary picture of human origins fails to emerge. On the one hand, if we apply the tactic of extreme skepticism equally to all available evidence, we wind up with such an insufficiency of facts that it becomes next to impossible to say anything at all about human origins. On the other hand, if we take a more liberal, yet evenhanded, approach to the totality of evidence, we are confronted with facts demonstrative of a human presence in remote geological ages, as far back as the Eocene, and even further.

5.5.8 The Pierce Mortar

In 1870, Llewellyn Pierce gave the following written testimony (Whitney 1880, p. 266): “This is to certify that I, the undersigned, have this day given to Mr. C. D. Voy, to be preserved in his collection of ancient stone relics, a certain stone mortar, which has evidently been made by human hands, which was dug up by me, about the year 1862, under Table Mountain, in gravel, at a depth of about

200 feet from the surface, under the basalt, which was over sixty feet deep, and about 1,800 feet in from the mouth of the tunnel. Found in the claim known as the Boston Tunnel Company.” Whitney (1880, p. 266) said the mortar was 31.5 inches in circumference. Voy visited the site and saw the approximate place where the object was found (Whitney 1880, p. 267).

William J. Sinclair interviewed Llewellyn Pierce in 1902, a good 40 years after the original discovery was made. Sinclair (1908, p. 116) wrote: “The mortar from the Boston claim was [according to Pierce] as large as a sixteen-gallon milk bucket and would weigh about seventy-five pounds. It was found in hard gravel under the cement, and was taken out by Mr. Pierce while he was sitting on a candle box, breasting [sic] out gravel. . . . The mortar preserved in Voy’s collection is an oval boulder of hornblende andesite into which a hole has been worked, about four and three-quarters inches in greatest width, and three and three-quarters inches deep, dimensions to which those of a sixteen-gallon bucket must be regarded as a rather liberal approximation.” This last sarcastic remark appears calculated to cast doubt on Pierce’s testimony. But it should be recalled that the entire mortar was 31.5 inches in circumference, which is close to the size of the mouth of a tall sixteen gallon milk bucket commonly used in dairies.

Sinclair (1908, p. 117) added: “The deep gravels in the bottom of the Table Mountain channels, tapped by the Boston Tunnel and other workings, are largely inaccessible, but so far as known are not volcanic. The incongruity of associating an andesitic mortar . . . with the old prevolcanic gravels is at once apparent. The andesitic sands and gravels of Table Mountain lie above the auriferous gravel channels in which these relics were supposed to occur.” If Sinclair is correct that the mortar was found in the prevolcanic gravel, then it would be 33–55 million years old (Table 5.3, p. 371).

But what was the source of the andesite from which the Pierce mortar was made? The prevolcanic auriferous gravels contained boulders of different kinds of rock formed in previous ages, so who can say that there were no isolated andesite boulders in the ancient river channels? Furthermore, there may have been deposits of andesite as old as the prevolcanic gravels in other nearby areas of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and therefore andesite boulders or finished andesite mortars could have been transported by human agency to the region of Tuolumne Table Mountain.

In fact, Durrell (1966, pp. 187–189) reported four nearby sites, all north of Tuolumne Table Mountain, which are just as old as the prevolcanic auriferous gravels and contain deposits of hornblende andesite. These are the Wheatland Formation, at 100 miles; the Reeds Creek Formation, at 100 miles; Oroville Table Mountain, at 140 miles; and the Lovejoy Formation, at 200 miles.

Good portable andesite mortars might have been a valuable trade item, and might have been transported good distances by rafts or boats, or even by foot. In a study of California Indians, R. F. Heizer and M. A. Whipple reported the presence of basalt mortars in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The mortars ranged in weight from 20 to 125 pounds. Heizer and Whipple (1951, p. 298) stated: “Each of these pieces must have been carried to the spot from not less than 25 miles away, no mean task for the slightly built, barefoot Indians. Stone is completely lacking in the alluvial deposits of the valley floodplain of the Sacramento and San Joaquin delta region.” According to Heizer and Whipple, such manufactured objects were frequently traded by Indians for unfinished raw materials.

Hence none of Sinclair’s arguments are strong enough to invalidate the testimony indicating that the Pierce mortar was deposited in the Table Mountain gravels during Tertiary times. The general tone of Sinclair’s paper indicates that he was strongly biased against the possibility of toolmaking humans living in the Tertiary, and that he was searching for any excuse to discredit these discoveries.

According to Sinclair (1908, pp. 116–117), Pierce found another artifact along with the mortar: “The writer was shown a small oval tablet of dark colored slate with a melon and leaf carved in bas-relief. Mr. Pierce claimed to have found this in the same gravels as the mortar, and, he thought, probably at the same time. This tablet shows no signs of wear by gravel. The scratches are all recent defacements. The carving shows very evident traces of a steel knife blade and was conceived and executed by an artist of considerable ability.”

Sinclair stated that this carving could not really have been as old as the Tertiary gravels in which it was discovered. It appears that Sinclair brought the carved tablet into his discussion simply for the purpose of distracting attention from the mortar reported by Pierce. Such tactics are often encountered in critiques of anomalous evidence.

Sinclair provided no account of the exact features of the slate tablet that led him to conclude it had been carved with a steel blade. Therefore, he may have been wrong about the type of implement that was used. Furthermore, the level of human technological achievements in the Tertiary was then, and still is, very much an open question. If the slate tablet was in fact discovered, with the mortar, in prevolanic gravels deep under the latite cap of Tuolumne Table Mountain, beneath a hard layer of “cement,” and if the tablet does in fact display definite signs of carving by a steel blade, then one would be justified in concluding that human beings of a relatively high level of cultural achievement were present between 33 million and 55 million years ago. In fact, the carved tablet could be taken as proof that the artisan used steel tools. Sinclair also said that the tablet showed no signs of wear by gravel. But perhaps it was not moved very far by the action of the Tertiary river and therefore remained unabraded. Or perhaps the tablet could have been dropped into a gravel deposit of a dry channel of a shifting stream. This would also explain why it showed no signs of excessive wear.

5.5.9 The Neale Discoveries

On August 2, 1890, J. H. Neale signed the following statement about discoveries made by him: “In 1877 Mr. J. H. Neale was superintendent of the Montezuma Tunnel Company, and ran the Montezuma tunnel into the gravel underlying the lava of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County. . . . At a distance of between 1400 and 1500 feet from the mouth of the tunnel, or of between 200 and 300 feet beyond the edge of the solid lava, Mr. Neale saw several spear-heads, of some dark rock and nearly one foot in length. On exploring further, he himself found a small mortar three or four inches in diameter and of irregular shape. This was discovered within a foot or two of the spear-heads. He then found a large well-formed pestle, now the property of Dr. R. I. Bromley, and near by a large and very regular mortar, also at present the property of Dr. Bromley.” This last mortar and pestle are shown in Figure 5.13.

Neale’s affidavit continued: “All of these relics were found the same afternoon, and were all within a few feet of one another and close to the bed-rock, perhaps within a foot of it. Mr. Neale declares that it is utterly impossible that these relics can have reached the position in which they were found excepting at the time the gravel was deposited, and before the lava cap formed. There was not the slightest trace of any disturbance of the mass or of any natural fissure into it by which access could have been obtained either there or in the neighborhood” (Sinclair 1908, pp. 117–118).

Figure 5.13. This mortar and pestle (Holmes 1899, plate XIII) were found by J. H. Neale, who removed them from a mine tunnel penetrating Tertiary deposits (33–55 million years old) under Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, California.

The position of the artifacts in gravel “close to the bed-rock” at Tuolumne Table Mountain indicates they were 33–55 million years old. In 1898, William H. Holmes decided to interview Neale and in 1899 published the following summary of Neale’s testimony: “One of the miners coming out to lunch at noon brought with him to the superintendent’s office a stone mortar and a broken pestle which he said had been dug up in the deepest part of the tunnel, some 1500 feet from the mouth of the mine. Mr. Neale advised him on returning to work to look out for other utensils in the same place, and agreeable to his expectations two others were secured, a small ovoid mortar, 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and a flattish mortar or dish, 7 or 8 inches in diameter. These have since been lost to sight. On another occasion a lot of obsidian blades, or spear-heads, eleven in number and averaging 10 inches in length, were brought to him by workmen from the mine. They had been found in what Mr. Neale called a ‘side channel,’ that is, the bed of a branch of the main Tertiary stream about a thousand feet in from the mouth of the tunnel, and 200 or 300 feet vertically from the surface of the mountain slope. . . . Four or five of the specimens were given to Mr. C. D. Voy, the collector. . . . Some had one notch, some had two notches, and others were plain leaf-shaped blades” (Sinclair 1908, pp. 118–119; Holmes 1899, pp. 452– 453).

As can be seen, there are significant differences between the account given by Holmes and the earlier affidavit of Neale. In particular, Holmes (1899, p. 453) said: “In his conversation with me he did not claim to have been in the mine when the finds were made.” This might be interpreted to mean that Neale had lied in his original statement. Here, however, the following points need to be carefully considered. The just-quoted passages from Holmes are not the words of Neale but of Holmes (1899, p. 452), who said: “His [Neale’s] statements, written down in my notebook during and immediately following the interview, were to the following effect.” It is not clear what liberties Holmes may have taken in his representation of Neale’s conversations with him. It is interesting that Holmes did not say that Neale denied that he entered the mine; Holmes merely said he did not positively state that he did enter, which leaves open the possibility that perhaps he did. It is thus debatable whether one should place more confidence in Holmes’s indirect summary of Neale’s words than in Neale’s own notarized affidavit, signed by him. Significantly, we have no confirmation from Neale himself that Holmes’s version of their conversation was correct.

That Holmes may have been mistaken is certainly indicated by a subsequent interview with Neale conducted by William J. Sinclair in 1902. Summarizing Neale’s remarks, Sinclair (1908, p. 119) wrote: “A certain miner (Joe), working on the day shift in the Montezuma Tunnel, brought out a stone dish or platter about two inches thick. Joe was advised to look for more in the same place. At the time, they were working in caving ground. Mr. Neale went on the night shift and in excavating to set a timber, ‘hooked up’ one of the obsidian spear points. With the exception of the one brought out by Joe, all the implements were found personally by Mr. Neale, at one time, in a space about six feet in diameter on the shore of the channel. The implements were in gravel close to the bed-rock and were mixed with a substance like charcoal.” When all the testimony is duly weighed, it appears that Neale himself did enter the mine and find stone implements in place in the gravel.

As in the case of the Pierce discoveries, Sinclair (1908, p. 119) observed “there is involved the anomaly of two late volcanic rock types, andesite and obsidian, occurring in the prevolcanic gravels.” Holmes raised the same objection. He asserted that according to geologists andesite “is not found in the formations of the particular region” until a period long after the gold-bearing gravels were deposited (Holmes 1899, p. 426). He added: “The objects being generally large, it is not to be supposed for a moment that they could have been brought from a distance” (Holmes 1899, p. 426). About obsidian, he stated it “is known only as a late product, having its origin in the most recent flows of the Sierra” (Holmes 1899, p. 426).

Concerning the andesite, we have already noted that there occur in the same region andesite deposits of the same age as the prevolcanic gravels at Tuolumne Table Mountain. Furthermore, the fact that andesite artifacts were found in more than one mine shaft under Tuolumne Table Mountain strengthens the supposition that boulders of andesite may have been present in the rivers that deposited the prevolcanic gravels. Furthermore, andesite mortars, although heavy, may have been transported by boat or raft, or even by foot.

As far as the obsidian spearheads are concerned, it is well established that Neolithic cultures all over the world have traded such objects over extended areas. Thus even if no raw obsidian was locally available, that would pose no obstacle to the presence of finished obsidian blades in the lowermost prevolcanic gravels at Tuolumne Table Mountain, which are 33 –55 million years old.

In countering Neale’s direct testimony that he found stone tools in prevolcanic gravels at Tuolumne Table Mountain, Holmes and Sinclair could, in the end, raise only the vague suspicion that the objects had somehow been recently introduced into the Montezuma mine. Sinclair (1908, p. 120) stated: “There was every indication of a former Indian camp site in this vicinity. Half an hour’s search resulted in the discovery of a pestle and a flat stone muller, a few yards north of the mine buildings. Similar discoveries were reported by Holmes. South of the tunnel, a large permanent mortar was found. The material of this mortar is latite from the cliff above. It is quite possible that the implements mentioned by Mr. Neale came from this Indian camp.”

In similar fashion, Holmes (1899, pp. 451– 452) questioned: “Is it not more reasonable to suppose that some of the typical implements of the Indians living at the mouth of Montezuma mine should have been carried in for one purpose or another, embedded in the gravels, and afterwards dug up and carried out to the superintendent than that the implements of a Tertiary race should have been left in the bed of a Tertiary torrent to be brought out as good as new, after the lapse of vast periods of time, into the camp of a modern community using identical forms?” But the reasonableness of Holmes’s supposition is questionable. There is, in fact, ample reason to believe that the implements found by Neale were not carried into the Montezuma shaft but were deposited in Tertiary times. First of all, in the passage quoted above, Sinclair referred to a large, immovable, permanent mortar found near the mine entrance, but the mortars found by Neale in the mine were portable mortars. Also, mortars much like those found in the California mines have been discovered at various sites around the world, including Jarmo and Beidha in the Middle East. This shows that such stone mortars are likely to have been made by any people, living at any time or place.

Furthermore, it has been shown in Africa that modern tribes use the same kind of cobble implements found in the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge. The similarity of the Olduvai implements to modern ones in use in the same region did not prevent acceptance of their Early Pleistocene antiquity. Therefore, the similarity of implements found in the prevolcanic gravels at Tuolumne Table Mountain to those found on the surface in the same region should not be taken as sufficient cause to deny their great age.

About the obsidian spearheads found by Neale, Holmes (1899, p. 453) reported: “Desiring to find out more concerning these objects . . . he [Neale] showed them to the Indians who chanced to be present, but, strangely enough, they expressed great fear of them, refusing to touch them or even speak about them; but finally, when asked whether they had any idea whence they came, said they had seen such implements far away in the mountains, but declined to speak of the place further or to undertake to procure others.”

Holmes (1899, p. 453) then stated: “I was not surprised when a few days later it was learned that obsidian blades of identical pattern were now and then found with Digger Indian remains in the burial pits of the region. The inference to be drawn from these facts is that the implements brought to Mr. Neale had been obtained from one of the burial places in the vicinity by the miners.”Here we must discount Holmes’s inference that the implements were brought to Neale by miners. We have established that Neale’s statements in his original affidavit, as confirmed by his later statements recorded by Sinclair, are deserving of credence, and these statements show quite clearly that Neale himself found the implements in the gravels. Holmes (1899, p. 453) then stated: “How the eleven large spearheads got into the mine, or whether they came from the mine at all, are queries that I shall not assume to answer.”

Using Holmes’s methods, it is clear that one could discredit any paleoanthropological discovery ever made: one could simply refuse to believe the evidence as reported, and put forward all kinds of vague alternative explanations, without answering legitimate questions about them. In the case under consideration, there is credible testimony by a reliable observer, Neale, that the implements were in fact found in the mine; therefore Holmes should not have failed to assume the burden of answering the queries he raised. Indeed, his failure to do

so raises justifiable doubt about the value of his queries.

Holmes (1899, p. 453) further wrote about the obsidian implements: “that they came from the bed of a Tertiary torrent seems highly improbable; for how could a cache of eleven, slender, leaf-like implements remain unscattered under these conditions; how could fragile glass blades stand the crushing and grinding of a torrent bed; or how could so large a number of brittle blades remain unbroken under the pick of the miner working in a dark tunnel?” As often as such objections are raised, we can answer, first of all, that one can imagine many circumstances in which a cache of implements might have remained undamaged in the bed of a Tertiary stream. Just for example, let us suppose that in Tertiary times a trading party, while crossing or navigating a stream, lost a number of obsidian blades securely wrapped in hide or cloth. The package of obsidian blades may have been rather quickly covered by gravel in a deep hole in the stream bed and remained there relatively undamaged until recovered tens of millions of years later. As to how the implements could have remained unbroken as they were being uncovered, answering that question poses no insuperable difficulties. As soon as Neale became aware of the presence of the blades, he could have, and apparently did, exercise sufficient caution to preserve the obsidian implements intact. Maybe he even broke some of them.

In a paper read before the American Geological Society and published in its journal, geologist George F. Becker (1891, pp. 192–193) said: “It would have been more satisfactory to me individually if I had myself dug out these implements, but I am unable to discover any reason why Mr. Neale’s statement is not exactly as good evidence to the rest of the world as my own would be. He was as competent as I to detect any fissure from the surface or any ancient workings, which the miner recognizes instantly and dreads profoundly. Some one may possibly suggest that Mr. Neale’s workmen ‘planted’ the implements, but no one familiar with mining will entertain such a suggestion for a moment. . . . The auriferous gravel is hard picking, in large part it requires blasting, and even a very incompetent supervisor could not possibly be deceived in this way. . . . In short, there is, in my opinion, no escape from the conclusion that the implements mentioned in Mr. Neale’s statement actually occurred near the bottom of the gravels, and that they were deposited where they were found at the same time with the adjoining pebbles and matrix.”

5.5.10 The King Pestle

Although the tools discussed so far were found by miners, there is one case of a stone tool being found in place by a scientist. In 1891, George F. Becker told the American Geological Society that in the spring of 1869, Clarence King, director of the Survey of the Fortieth Parallel, and a respected geologist, was conducting research at Tuolumne Table Mountain. Becker (1891, pp. 193–194) stated: “At one point, close to the high bluff of basalt capping, a recent wash had swept away all talus and exposed the underlying compact, hard, auriferous gravel beds, which were beyond all question in place. In examining the exposure for fossils he [King] observed the fractured end of what appeared to be a cylindrical mass of stone. The mass he forced out of its place with considerable difficulty on account of the hardness of the gravel in which it was tightly wedged. It left behind a perfect cast of itself in the matrix and proved to be part of a polished stone implement, no doubt a pestle [Figure 5.14].” The facts recorded by Becker tend to rule out the phenomenon of secondary deposition—i.e., that the pestle had fallen from a higher, more recent layer and become recemented in the lower, older layer. Becker (1891, p. 194) added: “Mr. King is perfectly sure this implement was in place and that it formed an original part of the gravels in which he found it. It is difficult to imagine a more satisfactory evidence than this of the occurrence of implements in the auriferous, pre-glacial, sub-basaltic gravels.” From this description and the modern geological dating of the Table Mountain strata, it is apparent that the object was over 9 million years old.

Figure 5.14. Left: Broken stone pestle found by Clarence King of the U.S. Geological Survey (Holmes 1899, p. 455). King personally extracted it from Tertiary deposits at Table Mountain, Tuolumne County, California. Right: A modern Indian pestle.

Even Holmes (1899, p. 453) had to admit that the King pestle, which was placed in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, “may not be challenged with impunity.” Holmes searched the site very carefully and noted the presence of some modern Indian mealing stones, but nothing else. He stated: “I tried to learn whether it was possible that one of these objects could have become embedded in the exposed tufa deposits in recent or comparatively recent times, for such embedding sometimes results from resetting or recementing of loose materials, but no definite result was reached” (Holmes 1899, p. 454). One may rest assured that if Holmes had found the slightest evidence of recementing, he would have seized the opportunity to cast suspicion upon the pestle discovered by King.

Unable, however, to find anything to discredit the report, Holmes (1899, p. 454) was reduced to wondering “that Mr. King failed to publish it—that he failed to give to the world what could well claim to be the most important observation ever made by a geologist bearing upon the history of the human race, leaving it to come out through the agency of Dr. Becker, twenty-five years later.” But Becker (1891, p. 194) noted in his report: “I have submitted this statement of his discovery to Mr. King, who pronounces it correct.”

Sinclair (1908, pp. 113–114) nevertheless attempted to raise doubts about the King pestle. He stated: “As a geologist, Mr. King was a reliable observer and able to determine whether or not the implement was in place and formed an integral part of the mass of gravel in which it was imbedded. Secondary cementation does not seem to have been taken into consideration. On many of the outcrops of andesitic sandstone in the vicinity of this locality, secondary cementation is in progress, indurating the soft sands into a hard rock to the depth of at least an inch. It is unfortunate that the matrix containing the impression of this relic was not preserved. As it is, there is no way of confirming the discovery. We have nothing but the specimen and the published account to work from.”

In response to Sinclair’s insinuations, the following points may be made. First of all, if as Sinclair himself stated, King was “a reliable observer,” it is extremely unlikely, next to impossible, that he did not consider the obvious likelihood of recementing. Second, the original description of the find, recorded by Becker, and attested to by King, stated that at first only the cylindrical broken end of the pestle was visible and that the rest of the pestle was embedded in the hardened gravel. A photograph of the pestle (Holmes 1899, plate XIV), shown three-quarters size, indicates that the pestle was at least four inches long. This means that the pestle was probably embedded at least a couple of inches in the hardened gravel. Sinclair, searching for evidence of secondary cementation, noted that this occurred to a depth of “at least” one inch on some of the rock surfaces. The recemented material was of sand. But the pestle found by King was embedded in a hard deposit of auriferous gravel that had only recently been exposed. Sinclair said it was unfortunate that the gravel matrix containing the cast of the pestle was not available for inspection, thereby implying that perhaps the pestle was embedded in something other than the auriferous gravel. But King’s statements, as recorded by Becker, make it clear that the pestle was found in the hard gravel deposits. Even Holmes, it should be remembered, hesitated to affirm that the pestle had been recemented onto the gravel in recent times.

Sinclair asserted that there was no way to confirm the authenticity of the discovery of the King pestle because all we now have is the specimen and the published report! The absurdity of this statement becomes apparent when we consider that specimens and reports of the circumstances of their discovery are all that we have to work from in almost all paleoanthropological discoveries ever made. Using Sinclair’s logic, we could assert that there is no way to confirm any of them. For example, Pithecanthropus erectus was discovered by Dubois in Java during the 1890s. By 1908, when Sinclair wrote about the King pestle, all that was left of Java man were the specimens, stored in a Dutch museum, and the published reports. Therefore the Java man discovery might also have been judged unconfirmable. But this Sinclair did not do. Why? Favored evidence, it appears, can pass where unfavored evidence cannot. That is one of the main messages of this book. Paleoanthropologists frequently apply very subjective standards in the process of accepting and rejecting evidence.

5.5.11 Finds at San Andreas and Spanish Creek

The next set of reports describes discoveries that were made under intact volcanic layers at places other than under the latite cap of Tuolumne Table Mountain. Whitney (1880, pp. 273–274) described some of these discoveries and their geological setting as follows: “The fact that human implements had been found in some of the mining claims near San Andreas, in gravel under the volcanic strata, was repeatedly mentioned to the writer by persons living in that vicinity, and Mr. Voy was successful in finding some of the parties personally concerned in these finds, and getting their written testimony in regard to them. . . . Through all the higher southeastern portion of this county [Calaveras] the streams run in deep parallel cañons, quite close to each other, and having the ridges between them capped with volcanic overflows, all seeming to form part of the grand lava system which has spread far down the Sierra slope from the vicinity of Silver Mountain. In the vicinity of San Andreas the volcanic accumulations consist of alternating layers of sand, gravel, and volcanic ashes and conglomerates, overlying, as usual in the Sierra, gravel deposits more or less auriferous, the pay gravel being usually quite thin, and the whole series of detrital and volcanic materials reaching a thickness, in places, of from 150 to 200 feet.”

Some evidence for the San Andreas discoveries came from R. D. Hubbard and John Showalter, who on January 3, 1871 provided C. D. Voy with the following statement: “This is to certify that we, the undersigned, proprietors of the Gravel claims known as Marshall & Company’s, situated near the town of San Andreas, do know of stone mortars and other stone relics, which had evidently been made by human hands, being found in these claims, about the years 1860 and 1869, under about these different formations:

Feet

Coarse gravel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2. Sand and gravel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

3. Brown gravel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

4. ‘Cement’ sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

5. Bluish volcanic sand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

6. Pay gravel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ……………………….. 150

The above [mentioned relics] were found in bed No. 6” (Whitney 1880, p. 274).

According to George Saucedo, a geologist of the California State Division of Mines and Geology, the pay gravels at the Marshall mine are probably Miocene or older (personal communication, 1989). The artifacts found in Bed 6 would, therefore, be in excess of 5 million years old.

W. O. Swenson, the justice of the peace who notarized the statement of Hubbard and Showalter, added: “I certify that I have seen one of the above described mortars, taken from said claims, and know the above to be true.”

Another set of discoveries was made nearby. Whitney (1880, p. 274) stated: “In Smilow & Company’s claim, on Gold Hill, about one mile west of Marshall

& Company’s, stone mortars were found at a depth of about one hundred feet in pay gravel, under the volcanic, the formation being closely similar to that of the last-mentioned locality [San Andreas]. This find is vouched for by Mr. Smilow himself.”

From El Dorado County came a report, by a Mr. Ford, that “near the head of Spanish Creek a perfect mortar and pestle were once found in the gravel beneath the volcanic matter” (Whitney 1880, p. 277).

5.5.12 Discoveries at Cherokee

In 1875, Amos Bowman, a part-time assistant to the Geological Survey of California, told of finds made at Cherokee, a few miles north of Oroville, in Butte County: “One of the mortars, found by Mr. R. C. Pulham, of the Spring Valley Mining Company, was taken out of a shaft he dug himself in 1853, and was found, according to his testimony, twelve feet underneath undisturbed strata. . . . About 300 feet east of this shaft Mr. Frederic Eaholtz took out in 1853 a similar mortar at a greater depth. I visited both places with Mr. Pulham, and found several mortars still lying around on the top of the blue-gravel bench which is not yet mined away.” The blue gravels, in which Pulham and Eaholtz discovered mortars, were “immediately underlying the auriferous gravel formation and the volcanic outflows” near Cherokee (Whitney 1880, p. 278).

Eaholtz gave information of further discoveries at another site near Cherokee. Bowman stated: “he told me further that, in 1858, while engaged with Wilson and Abbott in mining in the southwesterly part of the Sugar Loaf, he found in place, forty feet under the surface, a mortar of the same sort in unbroken blue gravel. This blue gravel nowhere comes to the surface, and it extends with the before-mentioned white and yellow gravel, under the Sugar Loaf, and under the Oroville volcanic mesa. It appeared only on the bottom of this claim. He was picking the blue gravel to pieces with a pick, when he found the mortar, which was a portion of the mass of cemented boulders and sand. He picked it out with his own hands” (Whitney 1880, p. 278). There were similar cases from Trinity and Siskiyou counties (Whitney 1880, p. 278).

George Saucedo of the California Division of Mines and Geology (personal communication, 1989) reported that the blue gravel is older than 23.8 million years. According to a study by R. S. Creely (1965), published in the bulletin of the California Division of Mines and Geology, the blue gravel is Eocene, or over 38 million years old. The implements found within the blue gravel would thus appear to be at least 23 million years old.

5.5.13 Evolutionary Preconceptions of Holmes and Sinclair

In light of the evidence we have presented, it is hard to justify the sustained opposition to the California finds by Holmes and Sinclair, who, as we have seen, were very reluctant to accept them as evidence of humans living in Tertiary times. Let us now review their five principal arguments.

(1) Holmes and Sinclair proposed that the discoveries of stone artifacts may have been the result of trickery by miners. But it is hard to see how or why such practical jokers could have slipped unseen into dozens of different mines over a distance of 100 miles, depositing numerous stone artifacts over a period of many years, or that so many miners would have assisted persons engaged in such trickery by not reporting them. Presumably, the motive would have been to deceive anthropologists, but this would have been a lot of work (some of the artifacts weighed 30 or more pounds) for what would seem to be an insignificant reward.

(2) Holmes (1899, p. 471) stated that none of the stone mortars showed evidence of unusual age or evidence of “wear and tear that would come from transportation in Tertiary torrents.” But one would not expect such simple, durable mortars to show much evidence of age; once buried they could remain undamaged for millions of years. As far as “Tertiary torrents” are concerned, why should we assume that rivers were always torrents during Tertiary times? Perhaps, as in the case of most other rivers within our experience, these rivers sometimes flowed swiftly and fiercely but at other times slowly and calmly. Furthermore, it is possible that stone implements were dropped into the streams at a point very close to the place where they became lodged in the gravels, or perhaps they were dropped on the banks of the streams. In either case, one would not expect to find many signs of “wear and tear.”

(3) Were the stone mortars perhaps carried into the mines by Indians living nearby? Holmes (1899, pp. 449–450) suggested this was the case: “the mountain Indians were in those days very numerous about the mining camps. The men were employed to a considerable extent in the mines, and it is entirely reasonable to suppose that their implements and utensils would at times be carried into the mines, perhaps to prepare or contain food, or perhaps as a natural proceeding with half-nomadic peoples habitually carrying their property about.”

But Whitney (1880, p. 279) said of the portable mortars found in the mine shafts: “They are not in use at present among the Indians of that part of California where the implement in question is so abundantly found. The Digger Indians seem now, for some unknown reason, to prefer cavities worn in the rock in place, and in these the writer has often seen them crushing their acorns; but never once has he found them using the portable mortar.”

Holmes (1899, p. 447) countered that Whitney “made the mistake of supposing they used only fixed mortars, that is, those worked in the surface of large masses or outcrops of rock. The fact is that portable mortars and grinding stones of diversified form are and have been used by Indians in all parts of California.”

But modern authorities agree with Whitney. Glenn J. Farris, a California state archeologist, wrote to our researcher Steve Bernath: “Generally speaking the Indians of the gold rush period used bedrock mortars rather than the portable cobble mortars. The only instance I know of use of portable mortars in this area was to grind pine seeds into a pine nut butter, but I would see no reason for them to be carried into the mines” (personal communication, April 11, 1985).

In another letter, W. Turrentine Jackson, professor of history at the University of California at Davis, stated: “the Indians rarely transported a mortar for the grinding of acorns because of the heavy weight.” Jackson also contradicted the proposition, voiced by Holmes thirty or forty years after the fact, that Indians remained in the mining region: “During the gold rush era the Indians were driven from the mining region, and they seldom came into contact with the forty-niners. I seriously doubt that any Indians had mortars of a portable nature in the mining areas. Certainly they would not have taken them onto a property while the miners were still operating” (personal communication, March 19, 1985). All in all, Holmes’s arguments against the Tertiary age of the stone artifacts from the auriferous gravels are not very convincing.

(4) Holmes and Sinclair were unable to believe that humans of the modern type could have existed millions of years ago. And even if they did exist, their implements could not, they believed, have remained the same from then until now. The implements from the ancient gold-bearing gravels closely resembled those used by Indians in relatively recent times. According to evolutionary principles, the implements should have been much different. This suggested to Holmes, Sinclair, and Hrdlicka that the implements from the gold-bearing gravels were in fact of recent manufacture. But on examining these implements, both the ones from the gold-bearing gravels and those known to have been made by Indians in recent historical times, we see that they are simple artifacts of a kind that would naturally have been manufactured by any Neolithic-type culture anywhere in the world and at any time down through history. For example, stone artifacts from Neolithic sites at Beidha in the Middle East and the Nakura site in East Africa (Figure 5.15) are very much like those known to have been made by California Indians in recent historical times. According to standard views of human prehistory, the cultures of the ancient Middle East and East Africa have no direct relation to those of the American Indians. This means that the mortars of California and the Middle East, although very similar in appearance, were developed independently. So if different peoples separated by thousands of miles independently developed similar implements, this suggests that different peoples separated by millions of years could have done the same.

Figure 5.15. Left: Stone bowl from Nakura, Kenya (L. Leakey 1931, p. 219). Center: Pestle from the Beidha site, in the Middle East (Singh 1974, p. 29). Right: A mortar and pestle from the Beidha site (Singh 1974, p. 29). Neolithic implements like these, manufactured at various locations around the world during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, resemble implements found in Tertiary gravels in California gold mines (compare Figures 5.13 and 5.14). Holmes and Sinclair thought the implements found in the mines were recent because they looked like implements used by the California Indians of recent historical times. But the fact that such implements have been manufactured by African and Middle Eastern peoples, with no connection to the California Indians, shows that the mortars and pestles from the mines are of a type that might be made by people living at any time and any place. Thus the resemblance of tools from the California gold mines to recent tools found in the same region does not rule out their great antiquity.

(5) A final objection was that the artifacts were generally found by inexpert persons who could have been deceived by fraud, but George F. Becker, a professional geologist, disagreed. “Now, so far as the detection of a fraud is concerned,” said Becker (1891, pp. 192–193), “a good miner, regularly employed in superintending the workings would be much more competent than the average geological visitor. The superintendent sees day by day every foot of new ground exposed, and it is his business to become thoroughly acquainted with its character, while he is familiar with every device for ‘salting’ a claim. . . . It is therefore an argument in favor of the authenticity of the implements that they have been found by miners.” Deception by miners was unlikely, especially in the many cases of tools found firmly embedded in the compact gravel.

S. Laing agreed with Becker about the unlikelihood of deception. Laing (1894, p. 387) wrote: “A conspiracy has been imagined of many hundreds of ignorant miners, living hundreds of miles apart, to hoax scientists, or make a trade of forging implements, which is about as probable as the theory that the paleolithic remains of the Old World were all forged by the devil, and buried in Quaternary strata in order to discredit the Mosaic account of creation.” Regarding forgery, it is significant that no money was ever asked for any one of the artifacts.

Having closely examined the arguments put forward by Sinclair and Holmes, we find it apparent that their positions were based more on prejudice than on sound scientific reasoning. One might ask why Holmes and Sinclair were so determined to discredit Whitney’s evidence for the existence of Tertiary humans. The following statement by Holmes (1899, p. 424) provides an essential clue: “If these forms are really of Tertiary origin, we have here one of the greatest marvels yet encountered by science; and perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood to-day, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusions formulated, notwithstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted.” In other words, if the facts do not fit the favored theory, the facts, even an imposing array of them, must go. A more reasonable attitude was taken by Becker (1891, p. 190), who wrote of the implements found in the prevolcanic auriferous gravels of California: “If such an association of remains actually occurs, theories must be modified to fit the fact.”

In his reports about the Tertiary discoveries in California, Whitney mentioned evidence from other parts of the world indicating the existence of culturally advanced humans in the Pliocene and Miocene periods. In 1871, according to Whitney (1880, p. 282), Portuguese geologist Carlos Ribeiro published a report (Section 4.1) that “cut flints, evidently the work of human hands, have been found in abundance in the Pliocene and Miocene even, of Portugal.” Whitney faulted Charles Lyell for not mentioning Ribeiro’s report in his authoritative survey, The Antiquity of Man. This is a valid criticism, demonstrating that right from the beginning of the scientific study of human evolution, uncomfortable evidence was simply ignored.

Alfred Russell Wallace, who shares with Darwin the credit for formulating the theory of evolution by natural selection, expressed dismay that evidence for anatomically modern humans existing in the Tertiary tended to be “attacked with all the weapons of doubt, accusation, and ridicule” (1887, p. 667).

In a detailed survey of the evidence for the great antiquity of humans in North America, Wallace gave considerable weight to Whitney’s record of the discoveries in California of human fossils and stone artifacts from the Tertiary. In light of the incredulity with which the auriferous gravel finds and others like them were received in certain quarters, Wallace (1887, p. 679) advised that “the proper way to treat evidence as to man’s antiquity is to place it on record, and admit it provisionally wherever it would be held adequate in the case of other animals; not, as is too often now the case, to ignore it as unworthy of acceptance or subject its discoverers to indiscriminate accusations of being impostors or the victims of impostors.”

Wallace, an evolutionist, charged scientists who automatically rejected evidence for the extreme antiquity of anatomically modern humans with playing “into the hands of those who can adduce his recent origin and unchangeability as an argument against the descent of man from the lower animals” (Wallace 1887, p. 679). But, humanity’s extreme antiquity, as demonstrated by the evidence cited by Wallace, also challenges the idea of human evolution from animals. This was certainly recognized by critics such as W. H. Holmes.

It is not hard to see why a supporter of the idea of human evolution, such as Holmes, would want to do everything possible to discredit information pushing the existence of humans in their present form too far into the past. Why did Holmes feel so confident about doing so? One reason was the discovery in 1891, by Eugene Dubois, of Java man (Pithecanthropus erectus), hailed as the much sought after missing link connecting modern humans with supposedly ancestral apelike creatures. Holmes (1899, p. 470) stated that Whitney’s evidence “stands absolutely alone” and that “it implies a human race older by at least one-half than Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois, which may be regarded as an incipient form of human creature only.” For those who accepted the controversial Java man (Chapter 7), any evidence suggesting the modern human type existed before him had to be cut down, and Holmes (1899, p. 448) was one of the principal hatchet men. Holmes stated about the California finds: “It is probable that without positive reinforcement the evidence would gradually lose its hold and disappear; but science cannot afford to await this tedious process of selection, and some attempt to hasten a decision is demanded.”

Holmes and his partner Hrdlicka warred long and hard to discredit all evidence for a human presence in the Americas any further back than four or five thousand years ago. During the nineteenth century, an extensive amount of evidence demonstrating a human presence far into the Tertiary had been amassed. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, it had become apparent to many American scientists that the decks had to be cleared.

Sinclair assisted in this task. In his introductory remarks to his paper on the California finds, Sinclair (1908, p. 108) wrote: “In working on the general problem of the time of man’s appearance in the California region, the Department of Anthropology of the University of California has taken up, as a necessary part of the investigation, a review of the evidence relating to the so-called auriferous gravel relics. The writer was commissioned to visit the localities where the discoveries of human remains reported by Whitney and others were made.”

Translation: Responsible scientists had concluded that modern human beings evolved from Pithecanthropus erectus, discovered in Java in 1891, in Middle Pleistocene formations. It was therefore an embarrassment to the University of California that it had in its collections stone implements said to date back well into the Tertiary. Further complicating the matter was the fact that the Tertiary age of these implements (and their human manufacturers) was vigorously advocated by the state geologist of California and other scientists. This contradicted the emerging picture of human evolution in general, as well as the increasingly accepted view that humans entered the Americas only recently. Sinclair was thus “commissioned” to do the required demolition job, and he did it well.

As might be guessed, Sinclair shared the evolutionary bias of Holmes, and it was this bias, more than anything else, that determined his negative attitude toward the California evidence. Sinclair (1908, pp. 129–130) wrote: “The occurrence in the older auriferous gravels of human remains indicative of a state of culture and a degree of physical development equal to that of the existing Indians of the Sierra Nevada would necessitate placing the origin of the human race in an exceedingly remote geological period. This is contrary to all precedent in the history of organisms, which teaches that mammalian species are short-lived. In North America, there are abundant remains of the lower animals preserved in deposits ranging from the Eocene to the Pleistocene. In all these deposits, excepting those of late Pleistocene age, the remains of man or any creature directly ancestral to man are conspicuously absent. No remains of Anthropoidea (from which man is doubtless derived), are known on this continent.”

There are a number of comments that can be made about Sinclair’s statements. As far as the history of organisms is concerned, we propose that our investigation of human antiquity shows that the history of other organisms might be different than Sinclair supposed. We began this present study for the purpose of evaluating the claim that all available evidence supports an evolutionary view of human origins, with modern humans descending quite recently from more apelike predecessors. We have determined, after thorough investigation, that such is not the case, that there is in fact abundant evidence that human beings of modern type have coexisted with more apelike creatures as far back in time as we care to extend our research. This clearly contradicts the usual claims made by evolutionists. We are therefore not certain what an objective evaluation of the fossil evidence for the history of other mammalian species might reveal.

Sinclair further maintained that human remains are absent from all North American deposits “excepting those of late Pleistocene age.” He also stated: “It has been reported on the preceding pages that a large proportion of the implements reported from the gravels are from those of the rhyolitic and intervolcanic epochs. This would mean that man of a type as high as the existing race was a contemporary of the three-toed horse and other primitive forms of the late Miocene and early Pliocene, a thesis to which all geological and biological evidence is opposed” (Sinclair 1908, p. 130).

But if one were to agree that the California auriferous gravel discoveries should be rejected just because nothing like them had been discovered before, one would then be obliged to reject any fundamentally new paleontological discoveries whatsoever. Of course, it should be pointed out that at the time Sinclair was writing there was in fact abundant evidence, from North America, South America, and Europe, attesting to a human presence in the Early Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene, and earlier geological periods. If Sinclair was aware of this evidence, which he should have been, he simply chose to ignore it. Concerning Sinclair’s assertion that no evidence of any anthropoid creatures had been found in North America, even this is contrary to the facts (Chapter 10).

In short, there was good reason to accept the California finds, as well as the many other discoveries we have reviewed in our discussion of anomalous stone tool industries. Nevertheless, in the early part of the twentieth century, the intellectual climate favored the views of Holmes and Sinclair. Tertiary stone implements just like those of modern humans? Soon it became uncomfortable to report, unfashionable to defend, and convenient to forget such things. Such views remain in force today, so much so that discoveries that even slightly challenge dominant views about human prehistory are effectively suppressed.

Concluding our study of anomalous stone tool industries, let us review some of the main points of interest. (1) Anomalous stone tool industries are not rare, isolated occurrences. The cases we have discussed form a massive body of evidence. Although many discoveries occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they have continued to occur up to the present. (2) Anomalous stone tool industries from very early times are not limited to eoliths, the human manufacture of which is considered by some as doubtful. Artifacts of undoubted human manufacture, similar to those of the finest Neolithic craftsmanship, are known to occur in geological contexts of extreme antiquity, as demonstrated by the California discoveries. (3) The much-debated eoliths are comparable to many unquestioningly accepted crude stone tool industries. Furthermore, eoliths appear to bear signs of intentional work not encountered in rocks broken by purely natural forces. (4) The scientific reporting of anomalous stone tool industries, even in the nineteenth century, was rigorous and of high quality. (5) It is apparent that preconceptions about human evolution have played an important role in the suppression of reports of anomalous stone tool industries. Such suppression continues to the present day.

Anomalous Human Skeletal Remains

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries quite a number of scientists found stone implements and other artifacts in Tertiary and early Quaternary formations. Scientists also discovered anatomically modern human skeletal remains in similarly ancient geological contexts.

Although these human bones originally attracted considerable attention, they are now practically unknown. Most current literature gives one the impression that after the discovery of the first Neanderthal in the 1850s no significant skeletal finds were made until the discovery of Java man in the 1890s.

For example, in describing the aftermath of the first Neanderthal find in 1856, anthropologist Jeffrey Goodman (1982, p. 56) wrote: “In the decades that followed, only discoveries of very old and crudely fashioned stone tools were made.” As we shall see, this is simply not true. Why, then, do we rarely, if ever, encounter discussions of the skeletal finds of this period in modern paleoanthropological literature? One reason may be that these finds contradict the current scenario of human evolution.

We shall now consider these skeletal remains, some more challenging to the accepted views of human evolution than others. These anomalous discoveries are not numerous, but then the accepted hominid skeletal remains enshrined in museums around the world are also limited in number. More than one author has declared that the essential skeletal evidence supporting the idea that human beings evolved from apelike creatures would fit on a billiard table or two.

R. N. Vasishat (1985, p. 1) stated that the “fossil primate record is poor and within it, the record of fossil man still poorer.” He added, however, that the few remains that have been recovered “when considered in the context of evolutionary evidences, known for other vertebrates with a better fossil record, allow us justifiable efforts at primate phylogenetic restorations” (Vasishat 1985, p. 1).

At first glance, the hominid fossils mentioned by Vasishat seem to support the phylogenetic restorations one usually encounters in textbooks and museums, but these restorations of evolutionary lineages fall apart when we include the human skeletal remains presented in this chapter.

In discussing these human bones, we shall focus first on their circumstances of discovery and the resulting stratigraphic age determinations, which are beyond the range modern evolutionary theory would permit. We shall begin with the least anomalous discoveries and then discuss those that are more so. In Appendix 1, we will review negative critiques by modern scientists, who have used chemical and radiometric methods to discredit the anomalously old stratigraphic dates assigned to some of the skeletal remains.

6.1 Middle and early Pleistocene discoveries

The first finds we shall consider are from the Middle and Early Pleistocene. The Trenton femur, if correctly dated, would be about 100,000 years old, which is anomalous for North America. The Galley Hill skeleton, from England, and the Moulin Quignon jaw, the Clichy skeleton, and the La Denise skull fragment, from France, are of ambiguous age, but are nevertheless relevant to our study of how scientists treat paleoanthropological evidence. The Ipswich skeleton appears to place anatomically modern humans in England during the Hoxnian interglacial, over 300,000 years ago. Many other Middle Pleistocene sites in Europe are linked with Homo erectus, even though no skeletal remains have been found. We argue that the tools and other artifacts found at these sites could just as well be attributed to anatomically modern Homo sapiens. A fully modern skull found by workmen excavating a dry dock in the harbor of Buenos Aires, Argentina takes us back to the Early Pleistocene. We shall also discuss a very primitive skullcap from Brazil, indicating the presence of creatures resembling Homo erectus in South America.

In our discussion of twentieth-century African discoveries (Chapter 11), we shall review three additional finds. These are the human skeleton recovered by H. Reck from an Early Pleistocene formation at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (Section 11.2), the human jaw discovered by Louis Leakey in an Early Pleistocene formation at Kanam, Kenya (Section 11.3), and the human skull fragments discovered by Louis Leakey in a Middle Pleistocene formation at Kanjera, Kenya (Section 11.3). We have chosen to discuss these three anomalous cases in Chapter 11 rather than here because they are closely connected to the accounts of conventionally accepted African finds.

6.1.1 The Trenton Human Bones (Middle Pleistocene)

On December 1, 1899, Ernest Volk, a collector working for the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, discovered a human femur in a railroad cut south of Hancock Avenue within the city limits of Trenton, New Jersey. The femur was found lying on a small ledge, 91 inches beneath the surface. Volk (1911, p. 115) stated: “About four inches over or above the bone . . . was a place about the length of the bone where it evidently had fallen out of.” This impression was overlain by the following strata:

7 inches of surface black soil, 16 –20 inches of yellow loam with water-worn pebbles, 44 inches of coarse gravel cemented together with red clay, and 21 inches of clean sand with red bands lying close together (Volk 1911, p. 116).

The human femur was found towards the bottom of the clean sand stratum, and it was photographed in that spot by Volk, who declared that the overlying strata immediately above and for some distance on either side of the find were undisturbed.

The fossil femur from Trenton was examined by two famous anthropologists, F. W. Putnam of the Peabody Natural History Museum at Harvard University and A. Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian Institution. Both of them declared the bone to be human. According to Hrdlicka (1907, p. 46), Putnam reported on the femur to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Volk (1911, p. 117) wrote: “It was found to be part of the left femur of a human being, that had been cut off square at one end; the cellular structure had been gouged out to enlarge the opening and it had been perforated in two places; it had apparently been the handle of some implement.” Volk said that the femur was thoroughly fossilized.

On December 7, 1899, Volk returned to the railway cut. About 24 feet west of the spot where he found the fossilized femur, and in the same layer, Volk recovered two fragments of a human skull (part of the parietal). The strata immediately overhead and for some distance on either side were said to be undisturbed.

Volk (1911, p. 118) stated: “That these human bones did not come from the upper deposits is made more probable by the fact that wherever . . . human skeletons have been found they have invariably been stained by the deposit in which they had been lying, but these fragments were nearly white and chalky.” The upper deposits were reddish and yellowish.

Hrdlicka (1907, p. 46) stated that the stratum in which the Trenton femur was found lay underneath a deposit of glacial gravel. This would put the Trenton femur well back into the Pleistocene period. We have already discussed the views of Hrdlicka (Section 5.1.2), who labored hard to prove that human beings entered North America and South America only quite recently, during the Holocene. Since the Trenton femur was like that of modern humans, Hrdlicka suspected it was of recent age. He expected that a genuinely ancient human femur should display primitive features. Hrdlicka (1907, p. 46) therefore said about the Trenton femur: “The antiquity of this specimen must rest on the geological evidence alone.”

Hrdlicka, however, was apparently unable to point out anything strikingly wrong with the geological evidence. The femur had been found in undisturbed Pleistocene interglacial deposits by a reputable collector for a prestigious university. Consequently, Hrdlicka did not directly dispute the femur’s Pleistocene interglacial age, but one gets the impression he felt further research would prove it recent. Hrdlicka (1907) did not mention the skull fragments Volk found.

In a letter dated July 30, 1987, Ron Witte of the New Jersey Geological Survey told us that the stratum containing the Trenton femur and skull fragments is from the Sangamon interglacial and is about 107,000 years old. According to standard ideas, human beings of modern type arose in southern Africa about 100,000 years ago and migrated to America at most 30,000 years ago.

6.1.2 Some Middle Pleistocene skeletal remains from Europe

During the nineteenth century, several discoveries of human skeletal remains were made in Middle Pleistocene formations in Europe. The reports we have studied raise doubts about the true age of these bones. We have nevertheless included them in our discussion for the sake of completeness. The presence of these skeletons in Middle Pleistocene strata could be attributed to recent intrusive burial, mistakes in reporting, or fraud. Nonetheless, there are reasons for thinking that the skeletons might in fact be of Middle Pleistocene age. We shall now briefly review some of the more noteworthy cases.

6.1.2.1 Galley Hill

In 1888, workmen removing deposits at Galley Hill, near London, England, exposed a bed of chalk. The overlying layers of sand, loam, and gravel were about 10 or 11 feet thick. One workman, Jack Allsop, informed Robert Elliott, a collector of prehistoric items, that he had discovered a human skeleton firmly embedded in these deposits about 8 feet below the surface and about 2 feet above the chalk bed (Keith 1928, pp. 250–266).

According to Elliott, Allsop had removed the skull but left the rest of the skeleton in place. Elliott stated that he saw the skeleton firmly embedded in the stratum: “I carefully examined the section on either side of the remains, for some distance, drawing the attention of my son, Richard, who was with me, and of Jack Allsop to it. It presented an unbroken face of gravel, stratified horizontally in bands of sand, small shingle, gravel, and, lower down, beds of clay and clayey loam, with occasional stones in it—and it was in and below this that the remains were found. We carefully looked for any signs of the section being disturbed, but failed: the stratification being unbroken, and much the same as the section in the angle of the pit remaining to this day” (Keith 1928, p. 253).

Elliott then removed the skeleton and later gave it to E. T. Newton (1895), who published a report granting it great age. An independent observer, a school master named M. H. Heys, reported that he had also seen the bones embedded in undisturbed deposits before Elliott removed the skeleton. Heys did not know Elliott at the time he examined the bones, and in fact he saw the bones before Elliott saw them. Heys reported that he saw the skull in situ just after it was exposed by a workman excavating the deposits and before it was removed from them.

Heys said about the bones: “No doubt could possibly arise to the observation of an ordinary intelligent person of their deposition contemporaneously with that of the gravel, for there was a bed of loam, in the base of which these human relics were embedded. The underneath part of the skull, as far as I could see, was resting on a sandy gravel. The stratum of loam was undisturbed. This undisturbed state of the stratum was so palpable to the workman that he said, ‘The man or animal was not buried by anybody.’ The gravel underneath the skull, of which I took particular notice, was stratified and undisturbed” ( Keith 1928, p. 255).

Numerous stone tools were recovered from the Galley Hill site. Newton (1895, p. 521) reported: “Mr. Elliott has obtained several types of implements from this pit; namely, tongueor spear-shaped forms, ovoid implements, hand hatchets, chipping tools, drills or borers, and flakes of various kinds.” Newton (1895, p. 521) added: “There are also many rude flakes and roughly-chipped flints in this gravel, the human origin of which might be doubted if they were found alone; and occasionally deeply-stained primitive forms are met with, similar to those found by Mr. B. Harrison on the high plateau near Ightham.”

According to Stuart Fleming (1976, p. 189), the stratum in which the Galley Hill skeleton was discovered is more than 100,000 years old. K. P. Oakley and M. F. A. Montagu (1949, p. 34) commented that this stratum is Middle Pleistocene and is “broadly contemporary with the Swanscombe skull.” Oakley (1980, p. 26) and Gowlett (1984, p. 87) considered the Swanscombe skull, found only a short distance from Galley Hill, to be from the Holstein interglacial, which occurred about 330,000 years ago. The Galley Hill skeleton, if roughly contemporary with Swanscombe, would be of the same age.

In terms of anatomy, the Galley Hill skeleton was judged to be of the modern human type (Newton 1895, Keith 1928, Oakley and Montagu 1949). Most scientists now think that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa around 100,000 years ago. They say that Homo sapiens sapiens eventually entered Europe in the form of Cro-Magnon man approximately 30,000 years ago, replacing the Neanderthals (Gowlett 1984, p. 118). Fully modern and found in strata contemporaneous with the Swanscombe site (about 330,000 years b.p.), the Galley Hill skeleton thus presents an anomaly.

Just what do modern paleoanthropologists say about the Galley Hill skeleton? Despite the stratigraphic evidence reported by Heys and Elliott, Oakley and Montagu (1949) concluded that the skeleton must have been recently buried in the Middle Pleistocene deposits. They considered the bones, which were not fossilized, to be only a few thousand years old. This is also the opinion of almost all anthropologists today.

The Galley Hill bones had a nitrogen content similar to that of fairly recent bones from other sites in England. Nitrogen is one of the constituent elements of protein, which normally decays with the passage of time. But there are many recorded cases of proteins being preserved in fossils for millions of years. Because the degree of nitrogen preservation may vary from site to site, one cannot say for certain that the relatively high nitrogen content of the Galley Hill bones means they are recent. The Galley Hill bones were found in clayey sediments known to preserve protein.

Oakley and Montagu (1949) found the Galley Hill human bones had a fluorine content similar to that of Late Pleistocene and Holocene (recent) bones from other sites. It is known that bones absorb fluorine from groundwater. But the fluorine content of groundwater may vary widely from place to place and this makes comparison of fluorine contents of bones from different sites an unreliable indicator of their relative ages.

Later, the British Museum Research Laboratory (Barker and Mackey 1961) obtained a carbon 14 date of 3,310 years for the Galley Hill skeleton. But this test was performed using methods now considered unreliable. Also, it is highly probable that the Galley Hill bones, kept in a museum for 80 years, were contaminated with recent carbon, causing the test to give a falsely young date.

For a more detailed discussion of the above-mentioned tests, see Appendix 1. Although modern paleoanthropologists have great confidence in these tests, there are good reasons for thinking that they are at least as imperfect and subject to error as older methods of dating, such as stratigraphic observation. Thus chemical and radiometric test results do not automatically invalidate stratigraphic observations with which they may be in disagreement.

In attempting to discredit the testimony of Elliott and Heys, who said no signs of burial were evident at Galley Hill, Oakley and Montagu (1949) and Oakley (1980) offered several arguments in addition to their chemical and radiometric tests.

Oakley and Montagu suggested (1949, p. 37) that by the time Elliott and Heys saw the skeleton “it is probable that the bulk of any evidence of burial had already been destroyed by the gravel digger.”

Oakley and Montagu (1949, p. 36) also stated that many fragments of animal bones had been found in the sands and gravels at the Barnfield and Rickson’s pits (both are a half mile from Galley Hill), whereas no animal bones had been found at the Galley Hill pit. From these facts, they concluded that originally there may have been a substantial number of animal bones in the Galley Hill deposits. They hypothesized that later these animal bones were all decalcified, or dissolved away, by the groundwaters. Hence the Galley Hill skeleton must have been recently introduced into the Middle Pleistocene gravels, after all the genuine Middle Pleistocene bones had been dissolved away. If the skeleton were really of Middle Pleistocene antiquity, it should have been dissolved away like the rest of the bones.

According to Oakley and Montagu (1949, p. 36), “This point does not seem to have been considered by previous investigators.” That is not, however, accurate. E. T. Newton, the scientist who published the original report about the Galley Hill skeleton, was well aware of the significance of the absence of animal bones at Galley Hill and other places in the immediate vicinity. Newton wrote (1895, p. 524): “The rarity of bones in these high-level gravels suggests the possibility of their having been removed by the continued percolation of water during the long period which has elapsed since they were deposited. It still further suggests that, if any human bones had been deposited with the gravel in Paleolithic times, they would long since have disappeared. However bones of certain extinct mammals, Elephas, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, and Felis leo, have occasionally been found, although generally in a much decayed condition, and the circumstances sufficiently favourable for their preservation may have obtained in other places also.”

Elliott reported that when the Galley Hill skeleton was uncovered “the bones were so friable and fragile that many went to pieces as soon as touched” (Newton 1895, p. 518; Keith 1928, p. 253). The decayed condition of the human bones thus matches that of the other rare occurrences of genuinely old mammalian bones in the immediate vicinity of the Galley Hill site.

Oakley and Montagu considered the possibility that the Galley Hill skeleton had been protected from percolating groundwaters by the loam layer in which it was embedded, but they concluded that this loam layer was “permeable.” Yet Newton (1895, p. 524) stated: “it is clear from Mr. Elliott’s letter, and from my own observation in the pit, that patches of more clayey deposit do here and there occur, one such having been noticed very near where the skeleton was found.” Clay is less permeable to water than loam, and, as noted in Appendix 1, is responsible for many remarkable cases of organic preservation.

Oakley and Montagu argued that the relatively complete nature of the Galley Hill skeleton was a sure sign that it was deliberately buried. The postcranial bones found were two partial humeri, two partial femurs, two partial tibiae, and some small fragments of the ribs and hip. Completely missing were almost all of the ribs, the backbone, the forearms, hands, and feet. In the case of Lucy, the most famous specimen of Australopithecus afarensis, more of the skeleton was preserved (Section 11.9.3). And no one has yet suggested that Australopithecines buried their dead. Scientists have also discovered fairly complete skeletal remains of Homo erectus (Section 7.1.8) and Homo habilis (Section 11.7) individuals.

These cases, as all paleoanthropologists would agree, definitely do not involve deliberate burial. It is thus possible for relatively complete hominid skeletons to be preserved apart from burial.

Throughout their report, Oakley and Montagu returned to the suggestion that the Galley Hill skeleton must have been a burial, and this may in fact be true. But the burial may not have been recent. Sir Arthur Keith (1928, p. 259) suggested: “Weighing all the evidence, we are forced to the conclusion that the Galley Hill skeleton represents a man . . . buried when the lower gravel formed a land surface.”

To sum it up, the arguments presented by Oakley and Montagu suggest the Galley Hill skeleton may have been a recent burial. But these arguments are not conclusive enough to invalidate the stratigraphic observations of Elliott and Heys, who, like Keith, were convinced the Galley Hill skeleton was genuinely ancient.

As can be seen, old bones point beyond themselves, quite obliquely, to events in the remote and inaccessible past. Controversy about their age is almost certain to arise, and in many cases the available evidence is insufficient to allow disputes to be definitely settled. This would appear to be true of Galley Hill. Since

1949, most scientists have, however, followed the lead of Oakley and Montagu in assigning the Galley Hill skeleton a recent date.

6.1.2.2 The Moulin Quignon Jaw: A Possible Case of Forgery

In 1863, Boucher de Perthes discovered an anatomically modern human jaw in the Moulin Quignon pit at Abbeville, France. He removed it from a layer of black sand and gravel that also contained stone implements of the Acheulean type (Keith 1928, p. 270). This black layer was 16.5 feet below the surface of the pit. According to Gowlett (1984, p. 88), the Acheulean sites at Abbeville are of the same age as the Holstein interglacial, and would thus be about 330,000 years old.

Upon hearing of the discovery of the Abbeville jaw and tools, a group of distinguished British geologists visited Abbeville and were at first favorably impressed (Keith 1928, p. 271). Later, however, it was alleged that some of the stone implements in Boucher de Perthes’s collection were forgeries “foisted on him by the workmen” (Keith 1928, p. 271). The British scientists began to doubt the authenticity of the jaw. Taking a tooth found with the jaw back to England, they cut it open and were surprised at how well preserved and fresh it appeared. Also they determined that it contained 8 percent “animal matter” (organic matter in today’s terms). Sir Arthur Keith pointed out, however, that in the same museum where the scientists met there were animal bones of Pleistocene age, prepared for display by John Hunter in 1792, containing up to 30 percent animal matter.

There are also reports of bones from the Late Pliocene Red Crag formation with up to 8 percent animal matter (Osborn 1921, p. 568).

It is not clear exactly how old the bones prepared by Hunter actually were—they might have been Late Pleistocene, perhaps as little as 10,000 years old. Even so, the general point that Keith was making is relevant. As we show in Appendix 1, there is much evidence that the amount of organic matter remaining in a bone (as measured by nitrogen content) is not always a reliable indicator of a bone’s age. Neither is the degree of fossilization. The rate at which a bone’s organic matter decays, or the rate at which minerals accumulate in a bone, varies greatly from one location to another.

According to Ronald Millar (1972, p. 72), the Moulin Quignon jaw had a coloring “which was found to be superficial” and “was easily scrubbed from one of the portions of bone, revealing a surface which bore little of the erosion common in old bones.” Some took this to be an indication of forgery. But Keith (1928, p. 272) interpreted this differently: “The mandible was originally covered by the black specks of the stratum in which it lay. Mr. Busk found he could brush these specks off; that does not invalidate its authenticity.”

Prestwich was also said to have discovered that the flint tools from Moulin Quignon had a superficial coloring that could easily be washed off. But other pieces of flint (not artifacts) from the same site had a coloring that could not be scrubbed off. This was also taken by British scientists as an indication of forgery.

In May 1863, British geologists met with their French counterparts in Paris to jointly decide the status of the jaw. According to Keith, the French maintained the jaw was authentic despite arguments by the British that it was a forgery.

Keith (1928, p. 271) stated: “French anthropologists continued to believe in the authenticity of the jaw until between 1880 and 1890, when they ceased to include it in the list of discoveries of ancient man. At the present time opinion is almost unanimous in regarding the Moulin Quignon jaw as a worthless relic. We see that its relegation to oblivion begins when the belief became fixed that Neanderthal man represented a Pleistocene phase in the evolution of modern races. That opinion, we have seen, is no longer tenable.”

In other words, scientists who believed the Neanderthals were the immediate ancestors of Homo sapiens could not accommodate the Moulin Quignon jaw because it would have meant that anatomically modern human beings were in existence before the Neanderthals. Today, the idea that the Neanderthals were the direct ancestors of the modern human type is out of vogue, but this in itself does not clear the way for acceptance of the Abbeville jaw, which if genuine, would be over 300,000 years old.

From the information we now have at our disposal, it is difficult to form a definite opinion about the authenticity of the Moulin Quignon jaw. Even if we accept that the jaw and the many flint implements found along with it were fakes, what does this tell us about the nature of paleoanthropological evidence? As we shall see, the Moulin Quignon jaw and tools, if they were forgeries, are not alone. Piltdown man (Chapter 8) was accepted for 40 years before being dismissed as an elaborate hoax.