Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

3.3.9 Continued Opposition

As far as the opposition was concerned, their attempted counterexplanations became more strained; indeed, it seems no proposal was too extreme to win the support of those who for one reason or another could not find room for Moir’s discoveries within the bounds of their paleoanthropological parameters.

Coles (1968, p. 29) informs us: “One of the final statements was made by Warren in 1948 in an address to the geological section of the Southwestern Union of Scientific Societies. . . . He agreed with Moir in considering that, at the present day, wave action was not an effective process in the fracturing of flint in a way comparable to that seen on Moir’s Crag specimens, but tried to find some other natural process that could have flaked the submarine flints exposed by erosion of that Chalk. Warren concluded that during the formation of the Crag deposits, the area must have been subject to the arrival of icebergs from the north. Such ice, grounding near the shores of the Crag sea, might well have caused the pressurecrushing and striation of the flints exposed on the sea bed. These arguments, apart from being practically the last word in the controversy, also neatly disposed of many of the points made by Moir about the differences between sea action fractures and his ‘implements,’ and allowed the exposure and deposition of fragile marine shells amidst the ice-fractured stone beds.”

We do not yet have in our possession a copy of Warren’s 1948 address, but one gets the impression, from Coles’s account, that the iceberg hypothesis was a somewhat desperate exercise in pure speculation. One wonders whether icebergs move onto shorelines in the manner suggested by Warren; and granting that they may, is there at present any hard evidence, anywhere in the Arctic or Antarctic regions, suggesting they have produced implementlike objects in the manner suggested by Warren? To our knowledge, no one has given any proof that icebergs can produce the numerous bulbs of percussion and elaborate retouching reported above by Capitan. Furthermore, as pointed out previously, many of the Red Crag specimens are lying in the middle of sediments and not on hard rock surfaces against which an iceberg might have crushed them. In addition, Coles (1968, p. 29) reported that at Foxhall implements occur in layers of sediment that appear to represent land surfaces and not beach deposits. This would also rule out the iceberg action imagined by Warren.

3.3.10 Silence Ends the Debate

After Warren put forward his iceberg explanation, the controversy faded. Coles (1968, p. 28) wrote: “That . . . the scientific world did not see fit to accept either side without considerable uncertainty must account for the quite remarkable inattention that this East Anglian problem has received since the days of active controversy.” This may be in part true, but there is another possible explanation—that the scientific community decided silence was a better way to bury Moir’s discoveries than active and vocal dissent. By the 1950s, with scientific opinion lining up solidly behind an Early Pleistocene African center for human evolution, there would have been little point, and perhaps some embarrassment and harm, in continually trying to disprove evidence for a theoretically impossible Pliocene habitation of England. That would have kept both sides of the controversy too much alive. The policy of silence, deliberate or not, did in fact prove highly successful in removing Moir’s evidence from view. There was no need to defeat something that was beneath notice, and little to gain from defending or supporting it either.

3.3.11 Recent Negative Evaluations of Moir’s Discoveries

Although most modern authorities do not even mention Moir’s discoveries, a rare notice of dismissal may be found in The Ice Age in Britain, by B. W. Sparks and R. G. West (1972, p. 234): “The beginnings of tool manufacture are shrouded in doubt by the similarity of primitive tools to naturally-occurring flaked pebbles. The earliest dated tools identified are found in Africa (Lower Pleistocene,

1.75 million years) and are of the so-called chopper tool or pebble tool type, made by striking a few flakes from the side of a pebble in one or two directions. Such an industry has been associated with Homo habilis and Homo erectus. In Britain such Lower Pleistocene industries have not been found. But early in this century many flints from the Lower Pleistocene Crags were described as being artifacts, such as the flints, some flaked bifacially, in the Red Crag near Ipswich, and the so-called rostrocarinates from the base of the Norwich Crag near Norwich. All are now thought to be natural products. They do not satisfy the requirements for identification as a tool, namely, that the object conforms to a set and regular pattern, that it is found in a geologically possible habitation site, preferably with other signs of man’s activities (e.g. chipping, killing, or burial site), and that it shows signs of flaking from two or three directions at right angles.” Sparks and West, of Cambridge University, are experts on the Pleistocene in Britain.

Briefly responding to Sparks and West, we may note that Moir and other authorities, such as Osborn and Capitan, were able to classify the Crag specimens into definite tool types (handaxes, borers, scrapers, etc.) comparable to those included in accepted Paleolithic industries, including the Mousterian. The Foxhall site, with the Foxhall jaw, was taken by many authorities to represent a geologically possible habitation site. Moir (1927, p. 33) considered it to be a workshop area and noted signs of fire having been used there. As far as flaking from several directions at right angles is concerned, this is not the only criterion that might be applied for judging human workmanship upon stone objects. Even so, M. C. Burkitt of Cambridge (1956, p. 104) did find flaking from several different directions at right angles on some of the implements that were collected by J. Reid Moir.

Among other scientists who opposed Moir’s discoveries and saw fit to say so in print was K. P. Oakley. Coles (1968, p. 29) stated: “Although Oakley (1961) goes so far as to say that ‘the chipping in some cases suggests intelligent design,’ he believes that none can be accepted without some reserve.” As have many other opponents of crude stone tool industries, Oakley included in his book some illustrations of natural products that supposedly resembled objects thought to be implements. Leland W. Patterson (1983, p. 303) has responded: “As an example of superficial observation, the author has received comments that the edge damage on natural flakes illustrated by Oakley resembles retouch patterns of unifacial tools. A careful examination of Oakley’s illustrations shows that the flake scars do not form a uniform pattern as is characteristic of the results of perpendicular force applications in making unifacial tools. In Oakley’s illustrations, flake scars at the edge go at a variety of angles from the plane of the ventral face of the specimens, instead of being parallel flake scars mainly perpendicular to the plane of the ventral face. Flake scars also vary widely in size.”

Yet another late-twentieth-century opponent of eoliths was F. Clark Howell. Coles (1968, pp. 27-30) stated: “Howell [1966, p. 89] dismisses all of this material by stating that ‘the angles of fracture and the nature of the flake removal . . . fall outside the range of variation of specimens known otherwise to be of human manufacture,’ but this is surely not a valid basis for rejection, particularly in view of the variability of known industries of the Lower and early Middle Pleistocene throughout the Old World.” We fully agree with Coles on this point and shall more fully discuss the important matter of angles of fracture later in this chapter.

3.3.12 A Slightly Favorable Modern Review of Moir’s Finds

Coles himself provides an exception to the usual instinctive rejection of Moir’s discoveries (or complete silence about them). He felt it “unjust to dismiss all this material without some consideration” (Coles 1968, p. 22). But as we shall see, Coles did, after some consideration, dismiss almost all of it.

Concerning the Forest Bed discoveries, Coles (1968, pp. 24, 27) stated: “Of the immense quantity of flints available, only a small proportion were flaked, and Moir believed, rightly it seemed, that wave-action could not have caused this fracturing. Most of the flaked pieces were irregular, but a few straight-edged retouched flakes occurred. Moir examined other areas of foreshore, to serve as a check on natural flaking in exposures, and claimed that there were no struck flakes outside his ‘workshop-sites,’ which had yielded both fractured flakes and cores.”

But then Coles (1968, p. 27) shifted to negative expressions: “These sites, however, are not generally accepted as showing any sign of man’s activity.” In fact, there is no “general acceptance” of any of Moir’s sites. But to what extent does general acceptance reflect the actual truth regarding the human manufacture of Moir’s implements? Coles himself admitted that the flaking on the Forest Bed specimens had probably not been accomplished by the action of waves but did not himself propose any specific alternative explanation.

Coles (1968, p. 24) went on to say: “The sites lay on the foreshore, and Moir believed that the occupation had taken place on the Stone Bed, and that it should therefore extend under the cliffs at Cromer.” But Coles (1968, p. 27) asserted that “the flint deposit is believed to occur only on the foreshore, and not to extend under the Cromer Forest Bed in the cliffs at Cromer.”

Coles appears to have been wrong about this. West (1980), who conducted extensive geological research on the Cromer Forest Bed Formation, made several references to the Cromer Stone Bed underlying the Cromer Forest Bed formations. He identified it as the source of the flints found on the foreshore at various locations and said it was of the same general age as the top part of the Norwich Crag (Table 2.1, p. 78). The Stone Bed, and any implements from it, would thus be about 1.0 to 1.5 million years old.

And about the Foxhall implements, from bands of black sediment in the middle of the Red Crag, Coles (1968, p. 29) had this to say: “they, and they alone, were stratified in such a position as to make their presence and fracturing in situ under the conditions envisaged by Warren most unlikely.”

This statement is not completely accurate. Capitan reported that the implements from the detritus bed below the Red Crag were also found in conditions that ruled out natural fracture by either pressure or impact (Section 3.3.8). As at Foxhall, the implements were found in sandy deposits, distant from other pieces of flint. Burkitt made similar observations (Section 3.3.13).

In any case, Coles (1968, p. 24) made this favorable comment about the implement-bearing layers at Foxhall: “Above and below were horizontally stratified clean sand deposits, showing no evidence of natural agencies sufficient to flake the flints found sporadically in the two dark layers.” The flints were also unrolled. Their sharp edges indicated to Coles that the flaking was human in origin. The random battering of natural forces tends not to preserve sharp edges.

Coles (1968, p. 29) further explained that the dark layers in which the flints were found “may represent temporary periods of land exposure during a general marine phase in this area.” In other words, the layers represent a probable habitation site. Coles (1968, p. 29) added that the relative rarity of the flints, as well as the fact that it was hard to account for their presence by natural means, indicated that they arrived at their positions in the dark layers in the Red Crag by artificial (that is to say, human) agencies.

“Unfortunately, however,” said Coles (1968, p. 29), “few of the flints found by Moir are convincing; a number are small flakes little over one inch in length, others are larger with edge flaking. One or two are bifacially retouched.”

The presence of bifacial retouch (retouching on both sides of an edge) is an extremely good indication of human manufacture. Leland W. Patterson, an expert on lithic technology, stated (1983, p. 304): “random forces could seldom produce a long interval of bifacially retouched edge that is sharp. Natural fractures tend to produce blunt and rounded bifacial edges, because of the steep transverse nature of most natural fracture.” That even one bifacially retouched implement was found at Foxhall is highly significant. It means that the other flakes cannot be so easily dismissed.

The fact that many of the flaked objects found at Foxhall are small does not rule out human manufacture. At many sites, small flakes are regarded as byproducts of the tool manufacturing process. Another possibility is that the small flakes themselves might have been used as implements. John Gowlett (1984, p.144) wrote in Ascent to Civilization: “Microliths are very small stone tools, generally 3 cm long [about 1.2 inches] or less, made from small flakes or segments of blades. Usually one side has been blunted by the ‘backing’ technique, a form of retouching in which tiny flakes are struck off the edge. . . . flakes which lack retouch are just as likely to have been used as tools.”

In fact, microliths, which occur principally in the Middle and Late Stone Ages, are regarded as a technological advance upon the earlier large handaxe industries. They are typical of Homo sapiens, and are identified with highly evolved cultural activities such as agriculture and bow-and-arrow hunting. For example, Gowlett (1984, p. 145) stated that “the tools were sometimes fitted end-to-end, in a row, into a curved blade desirable in a sickle.” Therefore, small size alone should not lead one to label stone flakes “unconvincing” as tools.

Coles himself (1968, p. 29) noted that one should be careful in ruling out human workmanship simply because stone objects do not appear convincing: “it must be born in mind that a number of the flakes from a site such as Vértesszölös . . . might also not have been accepted as demonstrating human workmanship if they had not been found on an undoubted working floor, in association with other human activities.”

Is there any evidence at Foxhall, in addition to the flaked flints, that might lend support to a human presence? The answer to this question is yes. First of all, the variety of flints and flakes found at Foxhall suggested a workshop location. Second, Moir noted the presence of burned stones, a sign that fire had been used at the site. And, finally, as previously noted, a fully human jawbone was recovered at Foxhall, from the same levels that contained the stone implements.

Confronted with this uncomfortable fact, Coles (1968, p. 28) lapsed into the reflexlike response typical of scientists with strong preconceptions about what might and might not be found in strata of certain ages: “As far as Foxhall is concerned, the presence of the jawbone, quite clearly Homo sapiens, suggests disturbance of some sort. Perhaps local landslip has occurred, bringing an upper Crag deposit on top of a recent land surface, which itself overlay Crag sands in situ.” But Coles did not provide any actual geological evidence that such a “landslip” had actually occurred. Coles’s proposal adds nicely to our collection of examples demonstrating how scientists adhering to the particular view of human evolution now in vogue must often engage in speculative mental exercises in order to bring anomalous evidence within the bounds of an acceptable time frame.

But despite his generally negative opinion about Moir’s discoveries, Coles nevertheless felt that three particular implements were worthy of further study. These were: (1) “the undoubted handaxe apparently from the Cromer Till at Sidestrand in Norfolk” (Coles 1968, p. 29); (2) a handaxe from the Stone Bed at Whitlingham; and (3) a handaxelike implement from the detritus bed below the Red Crag at Bramford. According to Coles (1968, p. 29), these three objects were the “one positive source of support for Moir’s views.” Otherwise, Coles felt that Warren’s iceberg hypothesis was essentially correct.

Here we would like to emphasize that we do not share Coles’s suspicion that Warren’s highly speculative iceberg hypothesis is preferable to the findings of the international commission of geologists and anthropologists, who held that Moir’s implements were definitely made by humans. Therefore, we do not believe that the final decision about Moir’s discoveries must rest solely on the interpretation of the three test specimens mentioned by Coles. Nevertheless, they are significant, and we shall now examine them, beginning with the Sidestrand find.

Moir (1923, p. 135) gave this description of the Sidestrand handaxe discovery (Figure 3.17): “The specimen was discovered lying upon its flat undersurface, and firmly embedded in Boulder Clay at the foot of the cliff, which passed directly into, and was apparently part of, the underlying mass.”

Coles (1968, p. 27) mentioned that the Boulder Clay at Sidestrand, Norfolk, in which the “undoubted handaxe” was found, was apparently the Cromer Till. The Cromer Till is from the Anglian glacial period (Table 2.1, p. 78), which began about .4 million years ago. But the handaxe “is believed to have been transported by glacial action from the upper part of the Cromer Forest Bed” (Coles 1968, p. 27).

In this regard, Moir (1923, pp. 136–137) stated: “The occurrence of this specimen in Boulder Clay, a deposit composed solely of derived material, makes it certain that the land surface, upon which the implement originally lay, must be looked for in some deposit more ancient than the Till at Sidestrand. Examination of the Cromer Forest Bed immediately underlying the Lower Glacial deposits of the Norfolk Coast has shown me that flints, exhibiting flake-scars of the same colour as those of Mr. Sainty’s specimen, occur freely in the Upper Freshwater Bed (the highest division of the Cromer Forest Bed series), and it seems to me very probable that the implement originally belonged to this deposit.”

The implement was quite unworn. Moir (1927, p. 47) explained this as follows: “the glacial clay . . . very frequently contains portions of the Freshwater Bed, which were torn up by the glacier in its advance.” The sharp edges of the implement could thus have been preserved by the surrounding Fresh-water Bed materials.

According to West (1980, p. 116), the Upper Freshwater Bed, as defined by J. Reid Moir and his contemporaries, includes materials ranging from the last part of the Cromerian temperate stage, at .4–.5 million years b.p., to the beginning part of the Pre-Pastonian cold stage, at 1.50–1.75 million years b.p. (Table 2.1, p. 78).

At 1.5 million years ago, the Sidestrand specimen, accepted by Coles as a definite handaxe, would be quite anomalous. Handaxes of this sort are usually attributed to Homo erectus, but according to the standard human evolutionary theory, at 1.5 million years ago, Homo erectus should still have been confined to Africa, where he should only recently have come into being. At .4–.5 million years, however, the Sidestrand specimen would be barely within the range of conventionally accepted stone implements in England. Let us now consider the two remaining test specimens mentioned by Coles. The first is an implement (Figure 3.18) “apparently from the Stone Bed at the base of the Norwich Crag, at Whitlingham.” The Whitlingham site is at the foot of a cliff near Thorpe, on the Norfolk coast.

Figure 3.17. Four views of a stone implement from the Cromer Till at Sidestrand (Moir 1927, p. 46). Coles (1968, p. 29) called it an “undoubted handaxe.”

Figure 3.18. Implement from Whitlingham, England (Coles 1968, p. 26, after Moir). Coles (1968, p. 29) called it “convincing as a handaxe.” J. Reid Moir said it came from the Stone Bed bed beneath the Norwich Crag, giving it an age of about 2 million years.

Coles stated (1968, p. 29): “On the face of it, this object is convincing as a handaxe. Unfortunately, it was not discovered in situ but lay with fallen material at the foot of a tall section. . . . It is possible that this object came from the till and not from the Stone Bed although Sainty and Moir claimed it was definitely from the latter.”

But Coles (1968, p. 24) also said: “This implement is in fresh condition, and it is unlikely that it could have survived transport in this condition.” This observation suggests that the implement might have come not from the glacial till but from the much older Stone Bed. An implement crushed beneath a moving glacier would probably have had its sharp edges removed. In our discussion of the Sidestrand specimen earlier in this section, we noted that Moir offered an explanation why the handaxe found there was not worn by glacial action— it might have been incorporated within a large piece of Forest Bed sediment taken up by the advancing glacier. Moir backed up this assertion by stating that the glacial clay at Sidestrand does in fact contain intact pieces of the Upper Freshwater Bed. But this special explanation (which Coles did not mention) does not necessarily apply at the Whitlingham site. Therefore, the unworn condition of the Whitlingham handaxe is consistent with its being incorporated in the Stone Bed. Coles (1968, p. 24) noted that the Stone Bed at Whitlingham contained “abundant shells, in situ, and unbroken,” as well as “many slender nodules of flint . . . also undamaged.”

In addition to the handaxe, a good many other flaked flint objects were recovered from the Stone Bed at Whitlingham, England. In regard to these discoveries, Breuil said (1922, pp. 228–229): “Mr. Reid Moir was able to retrieve some pieces in a stratigraphic position at the base of a cliff. That the enormous flakes found there were made by very violent human percussion cannot be doubted.”

Coles (1968, p. 24) stated: “Many of these Thorpe flakes were believed to exhibit deliberate flaking. The flakes include irregular forms with even retouch along one or two edges.” The presence of these other flaked implements “in a stratigraphic position” at the base of the cliff at Whitlingham tends to confirm the Stone Bed as the source of the handaxe.

The Whitlingham handaxe, if from the glacial gravels that make up the Cromer Till, would be not much more than .4 million years old. But if, as is most likely, the handaxe is from the Stone Bed underlying the Early Pleistocene Norwich Crag, it would be about 2 million years old (Table 2.1, p. 78).

Coles (1968, p. 29) said that his last test specimen (Figure 3.19) “was found at the base of the Red Crag at Bramford in Suffolk and its stratigraphical horizon is not in doubt.” He added: “It lay in the Detritus Bed in London Clay and was sealed by Crag sands. It is reminiscent of Chellean axes with triangular sections, but is considerably rolled; although it bears some 25 flake scars, and has lost all its cortex, the irregular nature of the object itself is not convincing.”

In another description of the same piece, Coles (1968, p. 24) stated that it was “superficially of handaxe form, with thirteen flake scars upon one face, and twelve upon the other.” He added: “These scars appear to have been directed from a multiplicity of positions on the edges, and are sufficiently elongated to overlap at the center of one face, producing thereby a triangular sectioned ‘tool’” (Coles 1968, p. 24).

The position of this specimen in the detritus bed beneath the Red Crag means that it is at least Pliocene in age (2–5 million years old). But because the detritus bed contains materials from land surfaces dating back as far as the Eocene, the handaxe could be as much as 55 million years old.

Figure 3.19. Handaxe from below the Red Crag at Bramford, England (Moir 1935, p. 364). It could be anywhere from 2 million to 55 million years old.

All in all, Coles, in spite of his negative conclusions, can be commended for his willingness to discuss Moir’s discoveries. At the end of his review, he stated: “A fair comment on the East Anglian material would, I think, be concerned to point out that the typology of the claimed implements was not necessarily outside the range of variation known from humanly worked industries in Europe and Africa, but that we have very little information about the natural flaking processes available in East Anglia in early Pleistocene times, some of which might well have been capable of producing flaked flints including bifacially-worked ‘handaxes’; no natural sources are known today which could do this under observation. Our greatly augmented evidence about the chronology of early tool-making in other parts of the world continues, however, to suggest how extraordinary it would be if the East Anglian Crag industries were of human manufacture” (Coles 1968, p. 30). This is an incredible line of reasoning. No natural forces known to today’s scientists can account for the production of the handaxes and other flaked implements. Nevertheless, Coles hesitates to accept them as the product of intentional human work.

It may be that in terms of the “greatly augmented evidence” available to Coles, human manufacture of the East Anglia specimens would seem extraordinary in terms of “chronology,” that is to say, their unexpected age. But in terms of the even more greatly augmented evidence presented in this book, human manufacture of the East Anglia implements during the late Tertiary and earliest Pleistocene would seem quite within the bounds of the ordinary.

In this regard, a modern authority, Gowlett (1984, p. 76), reported that four flakes and five pebble choppers were found at Le Vallonet, southern France, in old beach sediments dated 1–2 million years old. If we assign these eolithlike stone tools to the oldest part of their probable date range, they would be roughly contemporary with some of the East Anglia specimens, such as those from Foxhall. Gowlett called the Le Vallonet specimens doubtful, yet he mentioned them in his book. He did not, however, mention Moir’s discoveries.

3.3.13 Positive References to Moir’s Finds

We shall now consider some isolated examples of positive scientific reporting on J. Reid Moir’s discoveries from the latter half of the twentieth century. Cambridge University archeologist and anthropologist, M. C. Burkitt, who served on the international commission that examined Moir’s implements in the 1920s, gave favorable treatment to them in his book The Old Stone Age, published in 1956.

Burkitt was particularly impressed with the site at Thorington Hall, 2 miles south of Ipswich, where flint implements had been collected from the Crag deposits. “At Thorington Hall bivalve shells with the hinges still intact have been collected from just above the artifacts. This is very important evidence for the prehistorian, as no subsequent differential movement of the gravel, such as might have caused fracturing of the contained flints, can have taken place, since it would certainly have led to the smashing of the delicate hinges of these shells. Incidentally, too, at this site, as well as at Foxhall, the deposit in which the specimens occur is of a sandy nature and not packed with pebbles. So even if differential movement had occurred no fracturing due to the pressure of one stone against another could have resulted” ( Burkitt 1956, p. 108). That the implements were found isolated in apparently undisturbed sandy deposits also appears to rule out Warren’s suggestion (Section 3.3.9) that they were formed by icebergs crushing flint against the underlying chalk.

As far as Foxhall was concerned, Burkitt (1956, pp. 108, 110) stated: “At Foxhall the chipped flints were found at two different levels only, and this can be best explained if we consider that these levels were actually old land surfaces on which man lived, in other words that we are dealing with ‘floors’ or actual occupation sites.”

Burkitt ( 1956, p. 110 ) further stated: “The argument that the flints were chipped elsewhere by natural forces and later incorporated in these late pliocene gravels cannot always be maintained. Small flakes, as well as large specimens, occur together and this would not happen under such circumstances, as the selective action of flowing water would cause the smaller and lighter specimens to be collected together at one site and the larger and heavier objects at another.” Burkitt’s strong arguments in favor of actual living floors at Foxhall help resolve the doubts expressed by Coles and others about human manufacture of the flint objects found there.

Regarding Moir’s discoveries from the Cromer Forest Bed formations, Burkitt (1956, pp. 112 – 113) wrote: “For the most part these consist of large flakes carefully struck off from a core, the striking platform being unfaceted and frequently inclined at a high angle to the main flake surface. Although there is not always any further trimming, a sharp cutting edge has often been obtained. . . . Occasionally more finished tools are found and rarely specimens of a core-tool type such as choppers, etc. have been collected. Essentially, however, it is a flake industry with which we are dealing. . . . It would appear that these chipped specimens were made by men who lived at a time when the earlier beds of the Cromer Forest series were being laid down, for a few undoubted artifacts have been discovered in them, and the horizon at which they occur probably represents the ancient land surface on which these makers of the Cromerian industries wandered, collecting the raw material for their tools from exposures of the stone bed below. Actually most of the Cromer Forest Bed is now also masked by talus.”

Burkitt (1956, p. 112) then delivered a striking conclusion about the implements discovered in and below the Red Crag: “the eoliths themselves are mostly much older than the late pliocene deposits in which they were found. Some of them might actually date back to pre-pliocene times.” In other words, he was prepared to accept the existence of intelligent toolmaking hominids in England over 5 million years ago. Because there is much evidence, including skeletal remains (as we shall show in our coming chapters), that humans of the fully modern type existed in pre-Pliocene times, there is no reason to rule out the possibility that Moir’s implements from the below the Crag formations were made by Homo sapiens over 5 million years ago.

Another supporter of Moir’s finds was Louis Leakey (1960d, pp. 66, 68), who wrote: “It is more than likely that primitive humans were present in Europe during the Lower Pleistocene, just as they were in Africa, and certainly a proportion of the specimens from the sub-crag deposits appear to be humanly flaked and cannot be regarded merely as the result of natural forces.” Implements from below the Crags would, however, be not Early ( Lower) Pleistocene but at least Late Pliocene in age.

Leakey (1960d, p. 68) then made an important point: “It must be constantly borne in mind that although simple pebble chopping tools without any more elaborate forms are typical of the Kafuan and Oldowan, similar tools continued to be made and used by the makers of much more advanced cultures, just as we ourselves still use candles although we also have electric light.” This observation is essential to understanding lithic remains. There is no reason to suppose that crude stone tools, found in Early Pleistocene or Tertiary beds, must have been made by correspondingly primitive hominids. This is especially true when we consider that examples of much more sophisticated tools, of kinds universally attributed to Homo sapiens, occur in beds of the same Early Pleistocene and Tertiary ages (Chapter 5), as do skeletal remains indistinguishable from those of modern human beings (Chapter 6).

These discoveries are not well known, having been forgotten by science over the course of many decades or in many cases eliminated by a biased process of knowledge filtration. The result is that modern students of paleoanthropology are not in possession of the complete range of scientific evidence concerning human origins and antiquity. Rather most people, including professional scientists, are exposed to only a carefully edited selection of evidence supporting the currently accepted theory that protohuman hominids evolved from apelike predecessors in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, and that modern humans subsequently evolved from the protohuman hominids in the Late Pleistocene, in Africa or elsewhere. This book is intended to supply those concerned with paleoanthropological studies access to the full range of evidence. Objectively reviewed, the totality of evidence, in the form of incised bones (Chapter 2), stone implements (Chapters 3–5), and human skeletal remains (Chapter 6), suggests that the current theory of an African evolution is erroneous. It appears that toolmaking hominids indistinguishable from Homo sapiens sapiens were present in habitable areas all over the planet far back into the Tertiary epoch. This does not, however, rule out the simultaneous presence of more apelike hominids, some of whom may have manufactured some of the most primitive stone implements. In Appendix 2, we catalog selected radical evidence suggesting higher cultural levels in the Tertiary and even earlier.

3.4 Breuil and Barnes: Two Famous Debunkers of Eoliths

In paleoanthropology, we sometimes encounter the definitive debunking report—a report that is repeatedly cited as having decisively invalidated a particular discovery or general category of evidence. In the case of European eoliths, two papers are good examples of definitive debunking reports. These are H. Breuil’s paper claiming that pseudoeoliths were formed by geological pressure in the French Eocene formations at Clermont (Oise), and A. S. Barnes’s paper claiming to demonstrate, by statistical analysis of platform striking angles, the natural origin of Eolithic industries. We shall now review these two papers.

3.4.1 Breuil’s Attempt to End the Eolith Controversy

In 1910, Abbé Henri Breuil conducted investigations he thought would put an end to the eolith controversy. In his often cited report (“Sur La Présence d’Éolithes a la Base de l’Éocene Parisien”), Breuil said that for several years his attention had been drawn to the gravel pits of Belle-Assise, near Clermont, in the department of Oise, northeast of Paris. Excavations there had exposed a bed of chalk, which formed the stratigraphic base for the overlying formations. Above the chalk was a bed of clay containing layers of angular pieces of flint, interspersed with layers of gravel and sand. Above the flint-bearing clay was a very thick deposit of greenish Bracheux sands, which belong to the Thanetian formation, at the base of the Eocene (Obermaier 1924, p. 12). Breuil concluded that the flint-bearing beds below the sands must therefore belong to the very beginning of the Eocene. They would thus be about 50–55 million years old according to modern dating. Some modern authorities put the Thanetian formation as far back as the Late Paleocene, at 55–60 million years (Marshall et al. 1977, p. 1326). Above the Bracheux sands were gravel deposits from the Pliocene and Pleistocene.

“With the onset of the discussions concerning the question of how the eoliths were produced, ” wrote Breuil (1910, p. 386), “I frequently thought that an examination of the broken flints at the base of the Bracheux sands of the Thanetian at Belle-Assise would yield some interesting observations.” Breuil gathered specimens over the course of three years, carefully observing patterns of breakage. “I always avoided using metal tools to extract the flints, and also took care to reject those that had been subjected to contact from the picks of the workers. It is somewhat easy, at the moment one extracts a flint, to examine its surfaces, to see if the fracturing has been produced recently, or if the breakage took place before the excavation. The surfaces of ancient fractures always have thin deposits of iron or manganese” (Breuil 1910, p. 386).

Breuil (1910, pp. 386–387) then stated: “Having noted, without any possibility of doubt, the presence of flints with fractures indicative of intentional work and retouching, and thus resembling what are called eoliths, I invited many persons to come and confirm the fact. Capitan, Cartailhac, and Obermaier were able, along with me, to collect these characteristic flint objects with their own hands. Mr. Commont, with whom I had the pleasure of making an inspection of the flint-bearing strata, also collected some specimens. Furthermore, Commont found flints with features resembling intentional work and retouching in various Eocene exposures in Picardy. The stratigraphic position of the discoveries was the same as at Belle-Assise.”

Breuil then described specimens that displayed retouching, bulbs of percussion, and striking platforms. Some showed regular bifacial flaking, typical of Late Paleolithic implements. Others had chipping confined to the side of the flake opposite the bulb of percussion, another characteristic of human work. But Breuil (1910, p. 388) warned: “If in our descriptions we use terminology that normally is applied to proper tools of human manufacture, that is nothing more than a convention, a manner of expression, and does not at all signify that we suppose for an instant we are dealing with ancient implements made by people of Eocene or pre-Eocene times.”

Breuil felt that human action could be ruled out with complete certainty because the flints were found in an Eocene formation. Like many other scientists, he could not imagine human beings existed in the Eocene, when the mammals known from fossils were, apparently, quite different from those of today. Breuil (1910, p. 406) wrote of “the absolute unlikelihood of the presence, before the deposit of the Bracheux sands or during their deposit, of an intelligent being, a worker of flint.”

But if human action were to be excluded, how, then, had the flint objects been produced? Searching for a natural explanation, Breuil (1910, pp. 387–388) wrote: “It is easy to observe that the flints have not been subjected to transport, for their sharpest edges remain intact. From among the processes that could have resulted in their fracture, one can therefore eliminate the mechanical action of water, either of oceans or rivers. Further examination of the fracturing gives evidence of a different kind of mechanical action, which was able to produce facets and impressions analogous to those produced by intentional human work, or by energetic localized force. A bulb of percussion, more or less clearly present, is often found at the point where a flake was taken off from the surface of the parent block. One can totally eliminate a thermal origin of the fractures, because fractures produced by heat, in the form of surface flaking or cracking of the entire flint block, are completely different.”

Breuil (1910, p. 403) then presented specimens that he believed shed a very clear light on the mode of production of the “pseudotools” he had reviewed: “They are pieces of flint which were flaked while in their positions in the interior of the beds, the fragments remaining in contact with each other. It is easy to see that these fragments present conchoidal fracturing, with the production of positive and negative bulbs of percussion” (Figure 3.20).

Figure 3.20. Henri Breuil (1910, p. 405) found examples of flakes removed from parent blocks of flint by geological pressure in an Eocene formation in Clermont (Oise), France. Such specimens, he believed, showed that eoliths were not made by human beings.

Conchoidal fracturing is fracturing that results in elevations or depressions shaped like the curved inner surface of a shell. A positive (raised) bulb of percussion is found on the surface of a flake detached from a flint core. The core retains a negative impression of the bulb. Breuil held that the fracturing that produced these bulbs of percussion was the result of geological pressure. But what about the further signs of modification that normally are present on even the

crudest eoliths?

To account for this, Breuil also described a few flakes, found adjacent to parent blocks of flint, that had some chips removed from an edge. According to Breuil (1910, p. 403), geological pressure caused this apparent retouching. He proposed that as a flake was detached, it rotated, causing chips to be removed from its thinner edge as it scraped over the surface of the parent block of flint (Figure 3.21).

We shall give careful attention to Breuil’s arguments, because similar reasoning has been used in attempts to discredit many of the discoveries discussed in this book.

For example, Hugo Obermaier (1924, p. 4) observed in his book Fossil Man in Spain: “The controversy concerning Thenay [France did not subside until the year 1901, when L. Capitan and G. d’Ault du Mesnil showed how purely natural agencies might produce effects very similar to human handiwork, one of the most important being earth pressure above the brittle flint.”

Figure 3.21. (1) Parent block of flint, found in an Eocene formation at Clermont (Oise), France. (2) Flake, apparently removed by geological pressure, found in contact with parent block of flint. (3) Opposite side of flake, with one edge chipped, apparently by geological pressure (Breuil 1910, p. 406).

In his report on the flints found in the gravel pit at Belle-Assise, Breuil (1910, pp. 403–404) stated: “From the fact that the flakes found in connection bore signs of retouching, it can be concluded that retouching, bulbed flakes, and blocks with conchoidal flake scars were produced here exclusively by compression within the interior of the soil. . . . If one attempted to reproduce, on an intact block of flint, either the retouching or the flaking, one would have to employ the processes of percussion and vigorous compression used in working stone.”

This might lead one to wonder whether geological pressure was in fact the actual cause for the observed effects. A modern authority (L. Patterson 1983) stated that pressure flaking very rarely produces clearly marked bulbs of percussion. It is not apparent from Breuil’s drawings how well developed the bulbs of percussion are on his specimens. Breuil (1910, p. 388) himself described the bulbs of percussion as only “more or less” clearly present. But if the bulbs are well developed, this would, according to Patterson’s view, make it unlikely that they were produced by geological pressure.

In general, the bulb of percussion, as the name itself indicates, is taken as a sign of intentional percussive fracturing. But perhaps Breuil was correct in his supposition that geological pressure flaking could produce clear bulbs and retouching, like those found on implements made by humans. In that case, no crudely chipped stone object should be recognized as a genuine tool unless found directly in contact with other unambiguous evidence of human involvement. Applying this standard across the board, one would have to reject numerous conventionally accepted stone tools, such as the many crude Oldowan tools of East Africa that were not found in the immediate vicinity of hominid fossils.

As we shall see, Breuil (Section 3.4.2), like S. Hazzeldine Warren in England (Section 3.3.7), found Eocene objects resembling not only crude eoliths but advanced tools of the Late Stone Age. Breuil and Warren nevertheless believed that all of these toollike specimens—the most sophisticated as well as the crudest— were the product of natural geological forces. This implies that even specimens resembling very good Paleolithic implements should not be securely identified as tools unless found along with definite signs of human habitation. Of course, if geological pressure can produce very good “tools,” then even if such “tools” were found along with signs of human habitation, one could not tell if they were produced by nature or by humans. In order to satisfy skeptics like Breuil, it seems one would have to find even the best sort of implement clutched in the fossil fingers of a human hand.

But perhaps Breuil was wrong to suppose that geological pressure caused the bulbs of percussion on the many specimens he found in the Eocene at BelleAssise. His only evidence was the few bulbed flakes he found directly in contact with parent blocks of flint. Here we can refer to J. Reid Moir’s explanation of the same phenomenon (Section 3.3.6). F. N. Haward had found flakes in contact with parent blocks of flint in the stone bed below the Norwich Crag. Haward said they were removed by geological pressure alone, but Moir suggested the following. Before the flints were covered by the deposit, intentional (presumably human) percussion caused the formation of incipient bulbed flakes, which were later completely removed from the parent blocks by geological pressure or heat.

In any case, taking Breuil’s specimens as examples of pressure flaking, there is yet another problem to consider. It can be safely assumed that the specimens pictured by Breuil are among the better examples of flints found with flakes in contact with the parent block. But in studying the illustrations (Figures 3.20, 3.21), it is readily apparent that the flaking and retouching are extremely crude, far more so than that manifest on the other specimens of cores and flakes selected by Breuil as examples of pseudoeoliths ( Figure 3.22).

Figure 3.22. These objects, from an Eocene formation at Clermont (Oise), France, were characterized by H. Breuil as “pseudoeoliths” (Breuil 1910, pp. 389, 392, 400, 401).

Figure 3.23. A stone object discovered in the Eocene strata at Clermont (Oise), France (Breuil 1910, p. 394). It was characterized by Breuil as a pseudoeolith, produced by geological pressure. As evidence Breuil cited the presence in the same formation of detached flakes lying very close to the parent blocks of flint (Figures 3.20, 3.21). But implementlike objects as sophisticated as the one pictured here were not found with detached flakes lying nearby. This raises serious doubts about the viability of Breuil’s geological pressure hypothesis.

It seems, therefore, unfair to insist that the numerous better looking “pseudoeoliths” from the Eocene at Clermont, such as those shown in Figure 3.22, must have been formed by the same process of natural geological pressure flaking that had produced the extremely crude flakes.

But that is just what Breuil did in his report: “By means of this simple mechanical process, which one is able to perceive quite literally, there have nevertheless resulted the fractures, cleavages, terminal and marginal retouchings that simulate with extreme perfection the action of a voluntary agent with the preconceived intention of producing various elementary industrial artifacts, and, in exceptional cases, pseudomorphs of definite implements, not only eoliths” (1910, pp. 403–404).

This assertion does not, however, very easily follow from the examples presented by Breuil. He would have been justified in making such a statement only if he could have pointed to examples of the better looking eoliths found in contact with the parent blocks. And this he did not do.

Also, some of the implementlike objects from the Eocene formation at Clermont were themselves whole pieces of flint, from which chips had been removed to form the working edge. The object depicted in Figure 3.23 provides a good example. The unidirectional chipping concentrated on the upper edge is typical of intentional human work. If Breuil had discovered the implement shown in Figure 3.23 with a dozen or more chips lying alongside the chipped edge, we might be less doubtful about his argument. But in the absence of such a demonstration, intentional human work remains a more viable explanation.

3.4.2 “Two Truly Exceptional Objects” (Eocene)

The unsatisfactory nature of Breuil’s geological pressure hypothesis becomes even clearer when we turn our consideration to what Breuil (1910, p. 402) called “two truly exceptional objects, of which the site of discovery, in the interior of the beds, is absolutely certain.”

Describing the first object (Figure 3.24), which he characterized as a grattoir, or end scraper, Breuil (1910, p. 402) wrote: “The grattoir presents a blackish green patina, extremely brilliant, which is present on only a small number of small pieces of flint found in the sands.”

The formation of patina occurs where the cortex, or rough outer surface of the flint, is chipped away, exposing the glassy interior to the atmosphere. Breuil (1910, p. 403) observed: “The great majority of the flints are without patination, and their fracturing occurred in the interior of the soil at undetermined times and places.”

Breuil believed the presence of a brilliant patina on a small number of the flaked flints in the Eocene formation at Clermont meant they were fractured before they were incorporated into that formation. “Consequently,” said Breuil (1910, p. 403), “it can be concluded that the fracturing of these flints occurred in pre-Eocene times.” Therefore the pressure fracturing mechanism that Breuil used to explain the eolithlike objects at Clermont would not necessarily apply to the grattoir now under discussion.

In further describing the grattoir from the Eocene of Clermont, France, Breuil (1910, p. 402) observed: “Its plane of fracture shows a clear bulb of percussion; the other face shows fine and regular retouching, principally on the working edge, with a point at the apex, and on the left border.

Figure 3.24. This flint object was found by H. Breuil and H. Obermaier in an Eocene formation at Clermont (Oise), France (Breuil 1910, p. 402). Breuil said it was identical in form to certain Late Pleistocene implements, but he nevertheless considered it the product of natural geological pressure.

The chipping is less well-defined on the right side. This object is a veritable pseudomorph of an Azilio-Tardenoisian grattoir.” Scientists generally attribute the Azilio-Tardenoisian stone implements to Homo sapiens sapiens in the Late Pleistocene of Europe.

Figure 3.25. A flint object found in an Eocene formation at Clermont (Oise), France (Breuil 1910, p. 402).Although H. Breuil said it resembled a Late Pleistocene pointed tool, he claimed it was formed by geological pressure.

Breuil (1910, p. 402) then stated about the grattoir : “That it was discovered in place, at the base of the Eocene sands of Bracheux at Belle-Assise, is a cause of profound stupefaction.” Indeed it is. We can see no justification for attributing the highly sophisticated flaking on this piece to the kind of crude pressure flaking exemplified by the few specimens cited above by Breuil. It thus appears that we are confronted with yet another example of a stone object displaying definite signs of intentional human work being found in very ancient strata, in this case over 50 million years old. Significantly, it was found by Breuil and Obermaier in person. So it seems that even these two stalwart eolith debunkers may have unwittingly discovered an anomalously old implement of advanced type.

Describing the second exceptional object (Figure 3.25), which he characterized as “another very curious pseudomorph,” Breuil (1910, p. 402) wrote: “It is a very fine lamellar, or scalelike, flake, a little short, with, on its dorsal surface, multiple traces of longitudinal flaking, equally lamellar. At the point, the left side has some fine flaking on the dorsal surface; the other side shows fine chipping, like that produced by a burin. This object itself could be a micro-burin of Eyzies.” Les Eyzies is a Late Pleistocene site in France. It would have been quite remarkable to find a piece like this as a flake in contact with the parent block, and with the chips taken from it lying next to it. But nothing remotely approaching this was reported by Breuil. The examples he did cite and illustrate were of the crudest sort possible, being essentially nothing more than randomly fractured pieces of stone.

It is quite remarkable that Breuil should have included two technologically sophisticated specimens, of Late Paleolithic type, in his report without recognizing they were sufficient to demolish his entire argument. He skipped right over them, apparently genuinely unaware of their significance. But objects exactly resembling implements of the Late Paleolithic type, especially when found in an undisputed Eocene stratum, should not be skipped over. We can only request the reader to carefully consider what damage the demonstrated presence of toolmaking human beings over 50 million years ago in France would do to all current evolutionary explanations of human origins and antiquity.

Of course, one can always insist that the two remarkable objects reported by Breuil were products of nature. In that case, one could dismiss any stone tools, including conventionally accepted Late Pleistocene tools, for the same reason.

3.4.3 An Attempt to Trap Rutot

After describing the finds he had made at Clermont, France, Breuil launched an attack on the Belgian scientist A. Rutot, who had found a series of crude stone tool industries during the first decade of the twentieth century (Section 4.4). Breuil (1910, pp. 404–406) wrote: “Is it possible to distinguish the real eoliths from those produced by nature? We have read, from the pen of Mr. Rutot [1906], that ‘the recognition and appreciation of eoliths is not simple or elementary, as many persons believe. . . . It can be in certain cases very difficult to distinguish a pseudoeolith from a real one, just as the task of determining the difference between the closely related Cerithes and Pleurotomes is not easy to accomplish at first glance.’ If Mr. Rutot were confronted with our flints from Belle-Assise, would he judge them the work of an intelligent being, or simply curious and troubling pseudomorphs? Shown by Mr. Capitan a choice selection of our best specimens, Mr. Rutot, in the absence of information about their stratigraphic position, was willing to formulate his judgement. He considered them to be so well fashioned as to belong to the transition from the Eolithic to the Paleolithic, the Strepyan, according to his system, the primitive Chellean in French usage. According to Rutot, certain specimens ‘bear rudimentary traces of intentional work, as might be found in trial attempts.’ In others ‘the intentional work is of a much better character.’Another ‘has been utilized as a scraper, of which it has the character.’ Another long piece ‘bears on its end attempts at work, for making a dagger or piercer.’ Another is ‘a very good racloir [side scraper], very well worn from use and retouched.’ Another is ‘a very good grattoir [end scraper], equally well worn from use and retouched.’ Finally there is a very good ‘throwing stone.’ Mr. Rutot considers the morphology of the flints of Belle-Assise as characteristic of intentional work, surpassing the simple retouching of natural flakes found in eoliths, and marking the appearance of real intentional manufacture of definite tool types in the dawn of the Paleolithic. Shown the series collected by Mr. Commont, from both Belle-Assise and Picardy, Rutot gave the same diagnosis, though honestly acknowledging he had trouble with the Eocene age of such objects.”

If one accepts Breuil’s explanation that all of the specimens from BelleAssise were formed by geological pressures, as demonstrated by a few examples of crudely chipped flakes found in contact with parent blocks of flint, then, of course, Rutot comes off very badly. One can only conclude that the unwitting Belgian geologist foolishly accepted naturally flaked flints as objects of human manufacture. But, as we have shown, Breuil’s attempted explanation does not adequately account for all of the implementlike objects found in the early Eocene beds at Belle-Assise and elsewhere. Breuil (1910, p. 287) wrote: “Although parts of broken blocks of flint are frequently found still lying in close connection, this is not the rule, and one does not often find such cases, especially in the sand which is less compacted.” It would thus appear that examples of flakes lying next to their parent blocks (Figures 3.20, 3.21) were not all that numerous. Furthermore, the flakes found in contact with the parent blocks did not very closely resemble the many other specimens that Breuil called “pseudotools” (Figures 3.22, 3.23). In particular, the flakes in contact with parent blocks did not at all resemble the two Late Paleolithic type implements found at Belle-Assise (Figures 3.24, 3.25).

Therefore the assumption that all the specimens shown to Rutot were produced by natural forces is unwarranted. The presence of a few naturally broken flints at Belle-Assise does not rule out the possibility that many others, resembling implements, were in fact made by humans, especially since the latter category display more elaborate patterns of chipping than visible in the few specimens demonstrably broken by geological pressure. It is, therefore, quite possible that Rutot’s judgements about the specimens shown to him by Capitan were entirely correct, and that Breuil had inadvertently been the discoverer of a new Eolithic industry in the Eocene. Worthy of note is the fact that Rutot found signs of utilization on the edges of many of the specimens. The hypothesis that implemental shapes with signs of wear on the appropriate working edges could have been produced by blind natural forces will induce in at least some unprejudiced minds a sense of improbability.

3.4.4 The Role of Preconception in the Treatment of Eolith Evidence

It can thus be seen that Breuil’s main support was simply his unfounded belief that humans or protohumans capable of manufacturing even the crudest stone tools could not have existed in the Eocene. His view was shared by Hugo Obermaier. Many supporters of eoliths have pointed out that modern tribal people, such as the Australian aboriginals, make eolithlike implements. But Obermaier (1924, p. 16) protested: “If, then, from the actual [modern] eoliths we should draw the conclusion that, for the sake of consistency, similar forms from the Tertiary must also be considered as artefacts, we should find ourselves forced to admit the existence of man in Oligocene and perhaps even Eocene times. For these Tertiary products are in no way less ‘human’ than the corresponding modern forms, and must therefore presuppose similar cultural demands. Both Rutot in regard to Boncelles [Section 4.4], and Verworn in regard to Cantal [Section 4.3], urge the point that the flints from these sites—which really do conform most admirably to the human hand—‘appear to have been expressly made for it.’ Well, the same is true of Belle-Assise!” It is obvious that Obermaier, like Breuil, was a prisoner of a belief that humans could not have existed in the Eocene. But this belief appears to have been arrived at independently of the available evidence.

Obermaier, citing the work of Max Schlosser, who studied fossil apes at Fayum in Egypt, further stated: “Viewed from the standpoint of palaeontology all this is untenable. The forms most closely related to the Eocene man of Clermont would be the Pachylemurae [lemurs]! The oldest known fossil anthromorph, the Oligocene Propliopithecus, was probably no larger than a baby. No one can seriously believe [wrote Schlosser] ‘that so small a creature could use such large stones as the eoliths. Neither could this be said of Anthropodus, which certainly did not attain the size of a twelve-year-old child. According to this, the theory of Pliocene eoliths must also be abandoned’” (Schlosser 1911, p. 56; Obermaier 1924, pp. 16–17). It should, however, be kept in mind that these statements were founded upon a carefully edited version of the fossil record that deliberately excluded discoveries of fully human fossil skeletal remains in Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene, and even more ancient strata (Sections 6.2, 6.3). But even taking Obermaier’s statements as they stand, they exhibit a questionable logic. Obermaier should not have absolutely ruled out the existence of humanlike primates in the Tertiary simply because the only primate fossils recovered up till that time were nonhumanlike.

3.4.5 The Double Standard in Operation

Seeing the eolith question from another point of view, Breuil (1910, p. 406) stated: “It is established that the criterion for distinguishing these natural productions from flints truly used by man, or flints rudimentarily worked by him, has not yet been discovered, and probably does not exist.” Many authorities, from the nineteenth century up to the present, would disagree with this observation. The works of Leland W. Patterson (L. Patterson 1983, L. Patterson et al. 1987), outline a combination of criteria (including bulbs of percussion, retouching, striking platform geometry, repetition of particular forms, etc.) for judging human workmanship in even the crudest assemblages. Patterson (1983, p. 303) has stated: “Any experienced lithic analyst with a 10-power magnifier can distinguish fortuitously shaped flakes from unifacial tools.”

Breuil (1910, p. 407) did, however, admit: “One is not able to conclude from the discoveries at Belle-Assise that there is no such thing as an Eolithic industry, no intentional work on natural stone flakes, no first manifestation of rudimentary tool types.” He then stated that “in order to determine the presence of an intelligent being something more than calling attention to signs of adaptation is required, because the work of nature and that of human beings can be easily confounded. The objects should possess a degree of intentional work that is particularly clear, or should occur in an assembly of circumstances that rule out natural causes, or demonstrate, by the association of food debris or signs of fire, that human beings lived there” (Breuil 1910, p. 407).

But in many cases supporting evidence of the type specified by Breuil has been found in connection with stone implements. The stone tools discovered by Florentino Ameghino in an Early Pliocene formation at Monte Hermoso, Argentina, were accompanied by burned earth, remnants of hearths, burned and broken animal bones, and even human fossil remains, yet these implements were not generally recognized by the scientific community (Section 5.1.1).

Summarizing his case, Breuil (1910, p. 407) stated: “It is clear that we have here many pseudomorphs that show extreme signs of ‘wear,’ not only eoliths, but types truly recognized as Paleolithic, such as the marvelous small scraper in figure 67 [our Figure 3.24]. If nature, in exceptional circumstances without doubt, is able to produce objects that resemble advanced industrial types, perfectly defined and discovered in their normal geological position outside all possibility of error, there is thus very good reason to show caution regarding manifestations of the most elementary type of human activity, and to show great care before basing overambitious theories on such problematic findings. All this has been established in a definite manner and with all clarity.”

This statement hinges on accepting Breuil’s opinion that forces of nature are actually responsible for “types truly recognized as Paleolithic.” Nothing in his report demonstrated that this is in fact true. As we have seen, the examples he gave of flints obviously broken in place (Figures 3.20, 3.21) do not compare very well with even the cruder “pseudomorphs” he collected at the Belle-Assise site (Figure 3.22). He also gave no real explanation for the highly organized chipping on the more advanced “pseudomorphs” (Figure 3.25). It would thus seem that Breuil himself was the one who was guilty of constructing overambitious theories on the shaky foundations of problematic findings.

3.4.6 How Scientists Cooperated in Propagating Untruths about Eoliths

Breuil’s paper was quite influential and is still cited today as proof that eoliths are natural rather than artificial productions. As an example of how Breuil’s study was used shortly after it appeared, we can point to The Origin and Antiquity of Man (1912) by G. F. Wright, an American geologist. In a discussion of eoliths, Wright (1912, pp. 338–339) recounted how S. Hazzeldine Warren had shown that cart wheels rolling on gravel roads produced chipped flints like eoliths, and how Marcellin Boule had collected chipped flints resembling eoliths from machinery used for the production of cement. Wright, after lamenting that some scientists, like Rutot, were still promoting eoliths, wrote: “Within the year past, however, Abbé Breuil has apparently been able to give a finishing touch to the evidence discrediting the artificial character of the eoliths. We will content ourselves with quoting the summary of this evidence given by Professor Sollas” (Wright 1912, p. 340).

Wright then quoted from Ancient Hunters by W. J. Sollas (1911, pp. 67–69): “These [eoliths] were found by the Abbé Breuil in Lower Eocene sands (Thanétien) at Belle-Assize, Clermont (Oise). M. Breuil shows in the most convincing manner that they all owe their formation to one and the same process, i.e. to movements of the strata while settling under pressure of the soil. The flint nodules crowded together in a single layer are thus squeezed forcibly one against the other, and flaking is the inevitable result. . . . In many cases the flakes are still to be found in connection with the parent nodule, lying apposed to the surface from which they have been detached.” Wright published a reproduction of Breuil’s drawing of some very crude flakes lying next to parent blocks of flint. Sollas had used the same drawing in his book. As we noted in our previous discussion, the degree of “workmanship” on the flakes pictured in these drawings (Figures 3.20, 3.21) hardly approaches that of even the crudest of eoliths.

The quotation from Sollas (1911) about Breuil’s pseudoeoliths continued: “They display just the same forms as other Tertiary ‘eoliths,’ ranging from the obviously purposeless to those which simulate design and bear bulbs of percussion and marginal retouches. Among the most artificial looking are a few which present an astonishing degree of resemblance to special forms of genuine implements; attention may be directed to two in particular, which are compared by the Abbé Breuil, the one to Azilio-Tardenoisian flakes, and the other to the small burins of Les Eyzies; in their resemblance to artificial forms these simulacra far transcend any ‘eoliths’ which have been found on other horizons of the Tertiary series” (Wright 1912, p. 341). Sollas implied that Breuil found at Clermont examples such as these last two, with flakes in place. There is, however, a little dishonesty in this presentation. Sollas should have mentioned that although some pieces of flint were found with flakes lying nearby, these were, although displaying, in some cases, bulbs of percussion and secondary chipping, decidedly nonimplemental in character. Of course, most of the blame lies with Breuil, who wrote the original report.

Sollas concluded: “On the important question of man’s first arrival on this planet we may for the present possess our minds in peace, not a trace of unquestionable evidence of his existence having been found in strata admittedly older than the Pleistocene” (Wright 1912, pp. 341–342). This view is still prominent today, although there are hundreds of discoveries, a good many of which are discussed in this book, that invalidate it.

The case of Wright and Sollas shows how researchers who share a certain bias (in this case a prejudice against evidence for Tertiary humans) cooperate by citing a poorly constructed “definitive debunking report” (in this case by Breuil) as absolute truth in the pages of authoritative books and articles in scientific journals. It is a very effective propaganda technique. After all, how many people will bother to dig up Breuil’s original article, in French, and, applying critical intelligence, see for themselves if what he had to say really made sense?

3.4.7 Breuil Supports Moir

It is interesting to note that Breuil’s “definitive” 1910 report came before most of J. Reid Moir’s discoveries in East Anglia. Eventually, when Moir’s finds began to attract considerable attention, Breuil, and other scientists, went to England to conduct firsthand evaluations. Surprisingly enough, Breuil backed Moir.

M. C. Burkitt (1956, p. 107) wrote: “Messrs Breuil and Boule, who came over to see the finds, still maintained their skeptical attitude. Mr. Moir, however, was undaunted and continued his researches at new sites until finally at Foxhall, a few miles from Ipswich, he collected a series of specimens of such a nature that an examination of them by M. Breuil caused him to change his ideas completely and to join the ever-growing company of those prehistorians who believed in the existence of man as early as late tertiary times.”

It is noteworthy that such a conservative and cautious researcher as Breuil should have come out in favor of Moir. During his visit to England, Breuil had specifically searched Moir’s sites for any evidence of soil movement and pressure. But he found none. George Grant MacCurdy, director of the American School of Prehistoric Research in Europe, wrote in Natural History: “Breuil is authority for the statement that conditions favoring the play of natural forces do not exist in certain . . . deposits of East Anglia, where J. Reid Moir has found worked flints” (MacCurdy 1924b, p. 658).

Some of these deposits are found in the middle of the Red Crag at Foxhall. About Foxhall, Breuil (1922, p. 228) stated: “There is a twin layer in the superior part of the Red Crag, representing without doubt land surfaces that temporarily emerged shortly before the final retreat of the sea during the upper Pliocene.” As we have seen, modern authorities still place the Red Crag in the Late Pliocene (Section 3.3.2). Breuil (1922, p. 228) added: “Here there are no causes of natural mechanical fracturing—no rolling, no scraping, no contusion, no flints found in great quantities of stone. The flints are scattered, not numerous, have sharp angles, and are small in size, just as occurs in a level where the products and byproducts of lithic industry are present. The signs of intentional flaking are very well defined, and one also finds waste products of such flaking. One finds flint cores. Bulbs of percussion are very certain. One finds the same types as at the base of the Red Crag [in the sub-Crag detritus beds]. Furthermore I have noted instances of parallel successive flake removal.”

Moir himself (1924, p. 647) informs us that Breuil “definitely accepted the view that the sub-Crag implements were made by man.” In 1922, after visiting sub-Crag sites at Thorington Hall and Bramford, Breuil (1922, p. 228) wrote: “The level in which the flints are found represents a land surface that existed prior to the invasion of the Red Crag seas, which occurred in the upper Pliocene, bringing in a fauna adapted to the cold. There certainly does exist cause for mistaken identification of implements, such as intense compression of the soil, which, by means of mechanical action, many times produced examples of flaking and fracturing, including bulbed flakes, with edges showing chipping resembling retouching and signs of utilization. Nevertheless, there are some flint specimens that bear very well-defined bulbs of percussion, manifesting patterns of flaking that could only be obtained by removing successive flakes by repeated blows in the same direction. This flaking oftentimes gives the appearance of retouching, and absolutely resembles flaking of human origin. I am not aware of any action of compression that could produce these results. The mechanical action of rivers or the sea can also be eliminated as causes, as can thermal action. There are some flints that show evidence of having been burned. I reject the majority of rostrocarinates [a type of eolith] as not being the product of intentional work, but I do accept as the true product of intentional work an important number of specimens. These are not simply eoliths but are absolutely indistinguishable from classic flint implements.”

Breuil’s statement that some of the objects from below the Red Crag were “absolutely indistinguishable from classic flint implements” is highly significant. The sub-Crag formations, which lie between the Late Pliocene Red Crag and the Eocene London Clay, could be anywhere from 2 to 55 million years old. We thus have a situation analogous to that at the Belle-Assise site in France, where Breuil found in Eocene formations two “pseudomorphs” resembling classic Paleolithic implements of the Late Pleistocene. In the case of the sub-Crag implements Breuil stated he was “not aware of any action of compression that could produce these results.” This differed from the position he took regarding the two specimens from the Eocene of Belle-Assise, namely, that they were produced by geological compression. Breuil’s views about the authenticity of some of Moir’s implements nevertheless add considerable weight to the conclusion that the objects found at Belle-Assise were also the product of intentional human work rather than geological compression. One wonders why, if Breuil was prepared to accept the sub-Crag objects were manufactured by humans, he did not change his views about the two objects found at Belle-Assise.

Breuil, once an avid supporter of Moir’s finds, apparently became noncommital later on. In a late edition of Men of the Old Stone Age, published posthumously, Breuil and Raymond Lantier (1965, p. 56), in considering the Crag specimens, stated only that “traces of fire and a certain number of flakes might be accepted, though their angle of cut is generally against it.” One wonders why there is no mention of the objects Breuil (1922, p. 28) previously said were “not simply eoliths but are absolutely indistinguishable from classic flint implements.”

3.4.8 Barnes and the Platform Angle Controversy

Another important element in the eolith controversy was the platform angle test, promoted by Alfred S. Barnes. Barnes, who defended Moir against attacks by Haward and Warren in the 1920s, later became opposed. In 1939, he delivered what many authorities still regard as the death blow to the Red Crag and Cromer Forest Bed tools. But Barnes did not limit his attention to East Anglia. In his study, titled “The Differences Between Natural and Human Flaking on Prehistoric Flint Implements,” Barnes (1939, p. 99) considered stone tool industries from France, Portugal, Belgium, and Argentina, as well as those of Moir.

Supporters of the view that implements from the above sites were of human manufacture generally argued that natural forces could not produce the kinds of chipping observed on the objects in question. Barnes admitted that random concussion would not produce effects such as regular, unidirectional chipping along a single edge. He also felt that simple pressure from overlying beds, as proposed by Breuil (Section 3.4.1), was also not a very satisfactory agent, because it did not produce specimens with good striking platforms or clearly marked bulbs of percussion (Barnes 1939, pp. 106–107). But Barnes went on to give some examples of natural forces that, in his opinion, were capable of producing objects resembling eoliths. He called attention to some flints collected from the Blackheath Eocene marine beds at Stanstead in Surrey. At this site, by a process called foundering, flint nodules had descended 20 to 40 feet into cavities eroded in the chalk, where they were crushed by masses of large pebbles from the overlying beds. Some chipped flints were found lying in contact with the parent blocks (Barnes 1939, p. 103).

Besides foundering, another natural force that could, according to Barnes (1939, p. 106) and others, produce eolithlike specimens was solifluction, in which a large mass of frozen gravel thaws and then flows rapidly down a slope.

Barnes admitted that judgements based on simple visual inspection of chipping thought to have been caused by foundering or solifluction were liable to be very subjective. So he proposed that attention should be focused on some measurable feature of the implements that could be objectively evaluated. For this purpose, Barnes chose what he called the “angle platform-scar.”

Barnes (1939, p. 107) explained: “It may be said of natural fractures in general that some really good pseudomorphs of human work may be found, but when a number of specimens are examined, examples of aberrant flaking will be present. These aberrant flakes either serve no useful purpose in connection with the supposed tool or occur in positions where they would not be found in human work, or present angles platform-scar which are obtuse. The angle platform-scar is the angle between the platform or surface on which the blow was struck or the pressure was applied which detached the flake, and the scar left on the tool where the flake has been detached.”

We find Barnes’s description of the angle to be measured somewhat ambiguous. We have spoken with experts in lithic technology at the San Bernardino County Museum, including Ruth D. Simpson, and they have also been unable to specify exactly what angle Barnes was measuring.

In any case, in the angle platform-scar, Barnes believed he had found the objectively measurable feature by which one could distinguish natural chipping from human work. However, as noted later in this section, modern authorities such as Leland W. Patterson have extensively critiqued Barnes’s methodology.

Barnes (1939, p. 109) made these observations: “When we examine the tools of Paleolithic man we find that they are furnished with acute edges (less than 90 degrees) for cutting and scraping, for such edges are more effective for these purposes than edges with obtuse angles (90 degrees and over). There is a further reason why on humanly made tools we find that the majority of angles platform scar are acute and that is because the tool maker must be able to control the flakes he removes. . . . In the author’s experience of making flint implements he finds that for satisfactory control of the flaking the angles platform-scar lie between 20 degrees and 88 degrees.”

In order to be effective, the measurement had to be applied not to a single specimen, but to a large sample of specimens from the industry in question. Barnes (1939, p. 111) stated that a sample “may be considered of human origin if not more than 25% of the angles platform-scar are obtuse (90 degrees and over).” Having established this, Barnes (1939, p. 111) delivered a devastating conclusion: “None of the eoliths examined by the author . . . (Pre-Crag Suffolk, Kent, Puy Courny, Belgium, etc.) . . . comply with the criterion and therefore they cannot be considered to be of human origin.”

Interestingly enough, it appears that Moir himself was aware of the Barnes criterion and believed his specimens were within the required range. In 1935, four years before Barnes came out with his report, Moir analyzed his own specimens in terms of angles. He first noted that flint implements “are all, of necessity, made upon the same general plan,” utilizing “a more or less flat striking-platform in the production of the implements” (Moir 1935, p. 355). He then decided to examine “the angle of the secondary edge-flaking exhibited by a series of pre-Crag implements, a factor largely under the control of the flint flaker” (Moir 1935, p. 355).

The term “secondary edge-flaking” appears to refer to flakes removed from the edge of a selected piece of naturally broken flint in order to fashion it into an implement. Although one cannot say so with absolute certainty, the angle of this secondary edge flaking apparently corresponds to the “angle platform-scar” of Barnes. Moir (1935, p. 355) noted “Professor A. S. Barnes was the first to draw attention to the significance of such measurements of flint implements.”

Moir (1935, pp. 355–356) then gave the results of his study: “A quantity of pre-Crag implements to the number of 181, composed of 55 specimens of Group No. 1, 55 specimens of Group No. 2, 13 specimens of Group No. 3, 55 specimens of Group No. 4, and 3 specimens of Group No. 5, were measured with the following results. It was found that the average angle of edge-flaking of Group No.1 was 88½ degrees, of Group No. 2, 75½ degrees, of Group No. 3, 82 degrees, of Group No. 4, 79 degrees and of Group No. 5, 69 degrees.”

From these average figures alone we cannot verify that Moir’s samples met Barnes’s statistical requirement that at most 25 percent of the measured angles in each group exceed 90 degrees. But the angles Moir measured clearly tended to be acute, and he believed his tools satisfied Barnes’s requirement.

Nevertheless, Barnes believed he had demolished, in his brief 1939 report, every anomalously old stone tool industry found by scientists over the previous 75 years. For Barnes, and almost everyone else in the scientific community, the controversy was over. But factually speaking, Barnes was beating a dead horse, because the controversy about the eoliths and other Tertiary stone tool industries had long since ceased to be a burning issue. With the discoveries of Java man and Peking man, the scientific community had become increasingly convinced that the key transition from apelike precursors to toolmaking humans (or protohumans) had taken place in the Early to Middle Pleistocene, thus making the lithic evidence for Tertiary humans a sideshow topic of little serious concern. Barnes, however, could be seen as performing the valuable, if menial task, of sweeping away some useless remnants of irrelevant evidence. Thereafter, whenever the topic of very old stone tool industries happened to come up, as it still does from time to time, scientists could conveniently cite Barnes’s report. Even today scientists studying stone tools apply the Barnes method.

Barnes’s 1939 paper is typical of the definitive debunking report, which can be conveniently cited again and again to completely resolve a controversial question, making any further consideration of the matter superfluous. But on close examination, it appears that Barnes’s definitive debunking report may be in need of some debunking itself.

Alan Lyle Bryan, a Canadian anthropologist, recently wrote (1986, p. 6): “The question of how to distinguish naturefacts from artifacts is far from being resolved and demands more research. The way the problem was resolved in England, by application of the Barnes’ statistical method of measuring the angles of platform scar, is not generally applicable to all problems of differentiating naturefacts from artifacts.” During a phone conversation with one of us on May 28, 1987, Bryan stated that application of the Barnes criterion would, for example, eliminate any blade tools struck from polyhedral cores. He also expressed a cautious belief that Barnes may have gone too far in trying to eliminate all of the anomalous European stone tool industries. Giving attention to more recent discoveries, Bryan said that Peter White has shown there are Late Pleistocene Australian tools that do not conform to Barnes’s specifications.

An example of an industry that apparently does not conform with the Barnes criterion is the Oldowan, from the lower levels of the Olduvai Gorge. At site DK at the bottom of Bed I, 242 whole flakes were recovered. A striking platform angle could be measured on 132 of these. Mary Leakey (1971, p. 39) recorded the following results:

70–89° 90–109° 110–129° 130°+4.6% 47.7% 46.2% 1.5%

As can be seen, over 95 percent of the angles are obtuse. However, it is not clear from Leakey’s report exactly which angle was being measured. We discussed this with Ruth D. Simpson and her colleagues at the San Bernardino County Museum of Natural History, near Redlands, California. They were also unable to tell from Mary Leakey’s report exactly what angle was being measured. This is a general problem that we have encountered in our review of angle studies on stone tool industries. The vagueness of the descriptions of the angles being measured by various investigators makes it difficult to compare findings and calls into question the scientific usefulness of such reporting.

As far as the implements from Olduvai are concerned, if the angle being measured was the angle used by Barnes, or an equivalent angle, then the Oldowan industry, although universally accepted, does not meet the Barnes criterion. Considering the extremely crude nature of the objects, which Louis Leakey said were comparable to Moir’s implements, it is remarkable that they have never been subjected to the slightest challenge by the scientific community. This is probably because the Oldowan industry offers support to the African evolution hypothesis of human origins, which is accepted as dogma.

During the 1950s, the Barnes method was criticized by George F. Carter, who had discovered crude stone implements at various sites in the San Diego area, principally at Texas Street. The tools, mostly pebble choppers and quartzite flakes, were referred to the last interglacial. They were assigned dates of about 100,000 years, which violates the currently accepted idea that humans entered the Americas no more than 30,000 years ago, with most authorities adhering to a more conservative figure of approximately 12,000 years.

Reacting to attempts to dismiss the tools by the same methods used to reject the European eoliths, Carter (1957, p. 323) stated: “Comparison of the San Diego County material with that of Europe has severe limitations placed upon it that seem to have been missed by some people. The lithic materials are extremely different—quartzite and porphyries in California versus glassy rocks of the flint family in Europe. There is no frost action of solifluction or any related phenomenon in the San Diego area now nor was there any during the Pleistocene. There is no limestone area to founder and produce pressures.”

Specifically referring to the Barnes method, Carter (1957, p. 329) noted: “Clearly, many of the usual criteria for judging the human authorship of stonework do not apply to such a tradition. Regrettably this seems to apply especially to the platform-angles method of testing which was so useful in distinguishing between human and natural work in England. Barnes’ (1939) platform-angles on a bifacially flaked tool are much lower than 90 degrees. Those on flakes and cores of an industry such as that of Texas Street are normally about 90 degrees. It should not be overlooked that plano-convex tools normally have high platform angles.” Plano-convex tools are those that are flat on one side and convex on the other. So here we have another example of an industry that was accepted (at least by Carter and his supporters) as being of human manufacture and that does not conform to the Barnes criterion.

In the preceding paragraphs, we have reviewed a number of stone tool industries that appear to be exceptions to the criterion proposed by Barnes. If these industries can be considered exceptions, then why not any or all of the various Eolithic industries that Barnes rejected?

Leland W. Patterson, the principal author of a recent study on the stone implements discovered at the Calico site in California, has also examined the application of the Barnes method. At Calico, stone objects believed to be of human manufacture have been found in strata dated by uranium series analysis to about 200,000 years before the present. They are, therefore, like the Texas Street implements, highly anomalous. We shall discuss these and similar finds relating to the human settlement of the Americas more fully in Section 3.8. For now, we shall confine ourselves to studying the application of the Barnes method to the Calico specimens, which are quite similar to Eolithic implements.

Barnes angle measurements were used by L. A. Payen (1982) to dismiss the Calico specimens. But L. Patterson and his coauthors (1987, p. 92) believed that measurement of Barnes’s angle was not suitable for this purpose. Patterson defined the Barnes angle, or beta angle (Figure 3.26), as “the angle between the ventral surface and the platform plane” (L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 92). Patterson, however, preferred to measure the striking platform angle, which he defined as the angle between the dorsal surface of the flake and the platform plane (Figure 3.26).

Patterson observed: “For general lithic analysis, the striking platform angle is a better attribute than the ‘beta’ angle . . . because prominent bulbs of force on ventral surfaces of flakes can frequently interfere with ‘beta’angle measurement” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 301).

When Patterson and his coworkers measured striking platform angles rather than beta angles, their results differed from Payen’s: “Acute platform angles were found on 94.3% of the Calico flakes with intact platforms as compared with 95.5% of the experimental sample. The average platform angle of the Calico flakes was 78.7%, with a standard deviation of 8.3%. This is consistent with the usual products of intentional flaking” (L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 97).

Figure 3.26. (1) The Barnes, or beta, angle, measured on a stone core. (2) The Barnes, or beta, angle, measured on a flake detached from the stone core. (3) L. Patterson’s striking platform angle, also measured on a detached flake.

Why such a difference from Payen’s findings? Patterson and his coauthors stated: “A question can be raised as to the nature of Payen’s sample. Only specimens that are candidates for representation as products of controlled flaking should be subject to analysis of platform geometry. A large amount of analytical ‘noise’ can be introduced by analyzing miscellaneous specimens of broken stone that possibly are not the result of controlled flaking. It is common in many lithic industries to find large quantities of non-diagnostic broken stone that are not the products of controlled flaking” (L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 92). This might be true of some of the anomalously old European stone tool sites.

From Barnes’s report, it appears that he was measuring mainly secondary flake scars on possible implements. He said that he would measure 100 angles, from about 30 tools. Thus he would measure an average of 3.33 angles per object. As far as eoliths are concerned, they are mostly natural flint flakes or blocks that have been subjected to some limited intentional retouching. So they should have both intentional and natural flake scars. If Barnes randomly picked 3 flake scars per eolith for his measurements, it is quite possible that this would introduce enough obtuse angles to violate his requirement that no more than 25 percent of the measured angles should exceed 90 degrees.

Patterson and his coauthors (1987, p. 92) then stated: “Another source of error in the analysis of striking platform geometry is the confusion of secondary planes with true residual striking platforms on flakes.” Patterson (1983, p. 301) had earlier pointed out: “In collections both of man-made and naturally fractured stone . . . Barnes identified many specimens with flake-scar angles greater than 90 degrees. These observations must result either from incorrect identification of striking platform geometry or from incorrect angle measurements, if man-made controlled flaking or simulated controlled flaking by nature is being identified. Core flake-scar edge angles, and corresponding ‘beta’ angles on product flakes, cannot be obtuse in controlled flaking. On a flake, the striking platform and ‘beta’ angles are most often incorrectly identified when a secondary fracture has removed the true residual surface of the striking platform and has left another flake scar surface which gives the incorrect impression that these angles are obtuse. It must be emphasized that intact examples of controlled flaking will have striking platform and ‘beta’ angles under 90 degrees. . . . Studies such as that published by R. E. Taylor and L. A. Payen that use

‘beta’ angles on flakes as the basis for concluding that the sites of Calico and Texas Street do not have man-made specimens are questionable for the reasons given here.”

Further emphasizing this fundamental flaw in the Barnes method, Patterson (1983, pp. 301–302) stated: “Previous investigators have obtained the impression that collections of naturally produced lithic flakes have many striking platforms with obtuse angles, but this appears mainly to be a case of incorrect identification of striking platform geometry. . . . Collections of naturally fractured rock often superficially appear to have a high percentage of flakes with striking platforms that have obtuse angles simply because so many residual striking platforms are missing and secondary fracture planes are incorrectly identified as remnant striking platforms.”

Thus even collections of naturally broken stone should satisfy the Barnes criterion, if the original striking platform angles can be properly identified. It would thus appear that the method devised by Barnes is not appropriate for distinguishing between the effects of natural forces and intentional human work on pieces of stone.

“Probably the greatest problem with the Barnes method,” observed Patterson, “is that it considers only a single attribute, and it is very difficult to conclusively demonstrate the presence or absence of human workmanship in that manner” (L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 92). In another paper, Patterson gave some guidelines for a more suitable method of determining whether or not flaked stone objects are of human manufacture: “Demonstrate the likelihood of human manufacture by combinations of key attributes. Studies of single attributes will always remain unconvincing” (L. Patterson 1983, pp. 298–299).

Among the key attributes that Patterson suggested were the presence of clearly marked striking platforms (especially those modified for better flaking), multiple examples of tool types, platform angle measurements, the presence of bulbs of percussion and associated ripple lines, and the geological context. Other attributes that might be considered are the presence of regular retouching, sharp edges (nature tends to produce rounded edges), and signs of parallel flake removal. This balanced approach is typical of the methodology applied by the original discoverers of the stone tool industries discussed in the preceding pages.

Let us now consider in greater detail some of the key attributes identified by Leland W. Patterson and others. Patterson considered the bulb of percussion to be the single most important identifying factor. With regard to Calico, Patterson and his coauthors stated: “Of the 3,336 flakes from five Calico units, 26.1% had force bulbs and were classified as diagnostic flakes. In the experimental knapping project, using hard percussion, 24.3% of the 473 flakes possessed force bulbs and were classified as diagnostic flakes. By comparison, flakes produced by mechanical crushing (pressure force) usually have a very low percentage of distinguishable force bulbs, as shown by samples of flakes from mechanical gravel crushers” (L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 95).

Patterson (1983, p. 300) also pointed out that percussive fracturing tends to produce prominent ripple lines radiating from the impact point, whereas pressure fracturing produces finer ripple lines. In addition, percussion fracturing can result in the presence of eraillures, small chips removed from the ventral surface of the force bulbs.

Patterson stressed the bulb of percussion, force ripples, and eraillures as very important in making an identification because stone flaking by humans almost always involves percussive techniques, whereas naturally broken stone is generally the result of pressure flaking. Patterson and his coauthors stated: “To date there is no documented situation where natural forces have produced large concentrations of percussion made flakes” ( L. Patterson et al. 1987, p. 96).

In some controversial cases, Patterson has suggested that “the geological context of a lithic collection becomes important in determining if nature would have had the probable capability of fracturing rock, especially in a percussive manner” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 299). He added: “The only published manner that nature can do much percussive fracturing is under high-energy, ocean-beach storm conditions. . . . viscous liquids and slurries inhibit high-velocity percussive interactions of rocks. Pressure fracturing gives different lithic attributes than the percussive-type flaking used by early man. . . . Another condition in which nature can break rock is when flint nodules are held in a secure limestone matrix and there is a shift in the mass. Here, it is common to see shear fractures that have none of the key attributes of percussive fracture patterns” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 299). Here we see that Patterson, in common with the original proponents of many early stone tool industries, believed that it is possible to clearly distinguish natural pressure fracturing from that caused by intentional percussion flaking techniques.

In regard to tool type analysis and distribution patterns, Patterson commented: “Even if nature can produce lithic objects resembling simple man-made items, nature is not likely to do this often. Therefore, the frequency of occurrence at a given location of specimens with similar morphologies is important in demonstrating probable manufacturing patterns. Production of numerous lithic specimens with consistent morphology is certainly not a habit of nature. Quantitative data on amounts of each specimen type should therefore always be presented” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 298).

Patterson warned against the type of purely speculative interpretation often encountered in the writings of critics of anomalous lithic industries. An example would be Warren’s suggestion that grounding icebergs were responsible for Moir’s specimens. Patterson stated: “Even the personal opinion of a lithic expert is of little value if explicit technological reasons cannot be given to explain an opinion, either positive or negative. . . . The comments of [C. V.] Haynes on the Calico site lithic collection are a good example of subjective comments, without consideration of specific lithic attributes that could distinguish man-made manufacturing patterns. A list is given of ways that stone could fracture from natural causes, and then an opinion is given that the Calico lithics are the result of natural fractures, without presenting any detailed specific qualitative and quantitative studies of the attributes of the lithic materials in question. This type of subjective discussion should be avoided, as it unduly influences general opinion without any real basis” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 298).

In light of the views presented by Bryan, Carter, and Patterson, it is clear that wholesale rejection of the Eolithic and other early stone tool industries by application of the Barnes criterion is unwarranted. As a rule, the proponents of the anomalously old industries appear to have reached their conclusions by sounder analytic techniques than the opponents of such industries, whose objections mainly take the form of suggesting, with inadequate supporting evidence, various ways in which natural forces, principally pressure flaking, could have produced the objects in question.

So what are we left with? At this stage in our review of ancient stone implements, we find that we have some very credible reports, by reputable scientists, of stone tool industries dating well back into the Tertiary epoch. We should, however, point out that our investigations, although thorough, are by no means complete. In the course of our research, which we can only characterize as a preliminary survey, we have had to leave many leads unpursued (Eolithic industries from Tunisia, Egypt, etc.). We fully expect that future editions of this book will contain increasing numbers of authenticated examples of very ancient stone tool industries, as they come to our attention either in the course of our own investigations or through submissions by others.

3.5 Cement Mill Eoliths?

From the late 1800s to the present, some scientists have challenged the human manufacture of eoliths and other crude stone implements, claiming that flakes of flint just like them are produced by machinery at cement factories. Alfred Russell Wallace wrote to Benjamin Harrison on June 8, 1907: “I suppose you know that a considerable number of eoliths have been found recently on the high gravels of the New Forest, near Fordingbridge, by Mr. Westlake and others. But the most important thing recently is the attack on the human origin of eoliths by the production during some process of crushing flints on the Continent of forms which are alleged to be identical with those of the eoliths in every detail. Opinion seems to be strongly divided, but I have seen no really careful judgement after close comparison. Have you seen them? Can you not get a set of them in exchange for yours, and give us a careful comparison? That would be worth while” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 278).

“Harrison was alive to the challenge to the eoliths arising out of the alleged resemblances of battered mill-made specimens of rude implements,” observed Sir Edward R. Harrison (1928, p. 278). “He visited several brickyards and cement works in order to examine the stones that had been struck by the revolving rakes of the machines, and came away convinced that the chipped stones so produced were distinguishable from the typical Kent eoliths.”

In one of his notebook entries for the year 1907, Harrison wrote of a visit to a cement mill: “Had over an hour’s search on the waste heap, but could find no ‘eoliths.’ Two bulbed flakes found. One or two stones, having been accidentally rehit near the same place, bore some resemblance to poor eoliths, but still with a difference” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 275).

The charge that stones randomly chipped in mills resembled crude tools was also made in regard to other Eolithic industries in England and elsewhere in Europe. In 1905, Hugo Obermaier, with A. Laville, M. Boule, and E. Cartailhac, visited a chalk mill at Guerville, near Mantes, close to the Seine. Obermaier (1924, p. 11) wrote: “These mills consist of tanks filled with water, in which lumps of chalk with flint nodules embedded in them are rapidly rotated. In order to separate these nodules from the chalk and to pulverize the latter, chalk-lumps and water are subjected by means of turbines to a centrifugal motion of four meters [thirteen feet] per second. . . . The eoliths produced by the chalk mills, equally with those found in river deposits, showed forms with either partial or entire retouch around the edges, notched edges more or less deeply incurved, specimens that might be classed as scrapers, burins, and even planing tools.”

But a modern expert, Leland W. Patterson, has pointed out a method for distinguishing between random natural chipping on edges of stone and intentional human chipping. Patterson (1983, p. 304) stated: “Lithic objects in nature are generally free to move or are loosely held by surrounding materials. Randomly applied forces under this condition will tend to be very oblique to the edge of the flake. Fractures then occur transversely to flake edges in the direction of least mass resistance.” This kind of random chipping quickly removes sharp edges from flakes of stone. Furthermore, the chip scars tend to be of various sizes, rather than uniform in size, and tend to be oriented in many directions, rather than in a single direction.

Patterson’s own studies of crushed gravel from cement factories demonstrated: “In crushed gravel there are few objects that resemble man-made cores. There are also no long sections of flake edges with uniform, unifacial retouch” (L. Patterson 1983, p. 306). Eoliths and other early stone implements, it may be recalled, are characterized by unifacial retouch—chipping confined to one side of a sharp edge.

It thus seems that a careful student of lithic technology would be able to offer a response to the challenge by Obermaier, who believed running water was a better explanation of eoliths than human action. One might ask if any pieces with sharp edges were found at the chalk mill at Mantes? Obermaier said he saw “sharp edged types, and others in which the edge had been completely worn away.” He observed, “The sharp-edged types resulted after remaining in the mill from eight to ten hours, the others after a longer time in the water” (Obermaier 1924, p. 11). This evidence supports Patterson’s observation that random natural action tends to quickly wear away sharp edges, making it probable that sharp-edged Eolithic specimens with regular unifacial retouch were manufactured by human beings. Rapidly running water does not produce such effects.

Obermaier, however, tried to overcome this difficulty by proposing mechanisms that would result in only brief random percussive action on flints, a few hours over the course of perhaps millions of years. Here, as many times previously, we find a scientist eager to discredit unwelcome discoveries moving into the realm of extremely improbable special explanations. Obermaier referred to a deposit of Quaternary eoliths discovered by P. Wernert and R. R. Schmidt at Steinheim in the valley of the Stuben, near Württemberg, Germany. Wernert and Schmidt stated: “We were able to show at the site itself how the fragments of flint were borne along by the stream in the principal valley and suddenly drawn into whirlpools caused by the inflow of a tributary stream. By this means the flints were subjected to a strong rotary movement which, however, was limited and intermittent in action, and therefore did not result in such continuous wearing away as would transform the flints into rounded pebbles” (Obermaier 1924, pp. 11–12).

Even if the whirlpool explanation is granted, application of Patterson’s method of analyzing edge damage should result in identification of these specimens as the product of random natural forces rather than intentional human work. In fact, Obermaier himself (1924, p. 12), reported that A. Rutot, who discovered a famous series of crude stone implements in Belgium (Section 4.4), visited the German site in 1911 and pronounced the objects found there to be “pseudoeoliths.” Even a supporter of eoliths was apparently not as eager to see a human implement in every piece of broken stone as his opponents might have believed. He was able to distinguish a pseudoeolith produced by natural forces from eoliths of human manufacture.

Rutot’s own specimens were more sophisticated than Harrison’s eoliths. They were, nevertheless, sometimes called eoliths by authors who applied the term to almost any anomalously old and relatively unrefined tools. In the course of the debate about whether or not Rutot’s specimens were made by humans, the German scientist H. Hahne concluded they were distinct from machine-chipped rocks. In his book Human Origins: A Manual of Prehistory, George Grant MacCurdy, a professor of prehistoric anthropology at Yale University, wrote (1924a, pp. 91-92): “After a careful comparison of machine-made eoliths from both Mantes and Sassnitz with eoliths from Belgium, Hahne’s conclusions are as follows: (1) the chalk-mill flints are all scratched and otherwise marked by the iron teeth of the mill; (2) the sides of all the larger pieces are bedecked with scars from blows that were not properly placed to remove a flake; (3) almost every piece shows more or less of the original chalky crust of the nodule; (4) anything like a systematic chipping of an edge or margin is never found, except for a very short stretch, where one would expect it to be carried along the entire margin; this is quite different from the long retouched margins of most eoliths; (5) the same edge is often rechipped first on one side and then on the other, absolutely without meaning or purpose (the ‘reverse working’ of true eoliths is quite another thing); (6) in the mill product, coarse chipping alternates with fine retouches along the same margin, while on the eolith there is a regularity and orderly sequence of chipping; (7) the repeated rechipping of the same edge, while others are left untouched, does not occur in machine-made eoliths; (8) the chief difference is between the haphazard and meaningless on one hand, and the purposeful on the other. The most prominent and easily breakable parts suffer most in passing through the mill. They are often retained intact, or only slightly altered to serve as a handhold on the eolith, and there is a logical relationship between the worked and unworked portion.”

During the early decades of the twentieth century, the recurring cement-mill accusations were also leveled against the finds of J. Reid Moir in England. But M. C. Burkitt, a Cambridge archeologist and anthropologist, rejected the various attempts to account for the chipping on crude stone implements by reference to mechanical agencies. In 1905, Marcellin Boule had published a long article about cement-machine chipping that produced pieces of stone resembling eoliths. In his book The Old Stone Age, Burkitt (1956, p. 104) noted: “It is certainly true that specimens showing a remarkable series of chippings are produced by such machines, but no mechanical machine or natural force can chip a flint, dealing the blows from only two or three directions, more or less at right angles to one another.” Burkitt (1956, p. 104) believed that some of Moir’s flint specimens met that criterion and pointed out that “a number of serious students believe that the Kent specimens [of B. Harrison] are really the result of human workmanship.”

It therefore appears that in no case were opponents of anomalously old crude stone tool industries able to conclusively demonstrate that implements representative of these industries could be duplicated by the action of cement and chalk mills. Thus they failed to show that the implements were in fact the product of purely natural forces rather than intentional human work. Instead, various researchers, from the late nineteenth century to the present, have presented criteria by which crude stone implements can be distinguished from the products of random battering of lithic materials, and have shown that the stone tool industries under consideration satisfied these criteria.

3.6 Impact of the English Eolithic Industries on Modern Ideas of Human Evolution

If scientists were to resurrect the eoliths of the Kent Plateau and East Anglia, at least granting them some serious consideration, then how would they fit into the current scenario of human evolution?

3.6.1 Eoliths of the Kent Plateau

First let us consider the implements discovered by Benjamin Harrison on the Kent Plateau. For the sake of the discussion that follows, let us set aside all the evidence for stone tool industries in the Miocene and earlier geological periods (see for example, Sections 4.1–4, 4.7, 5.5), and let us consider just the Kent Plateau implements. The reasoning behind this approach is as follows. If we take seriously the evidence for the presence of toolmaking beings in Europe during the Miocene period, then the whole story of human evolution currently accepted, with the Homo line originating in Africa and migrating to Europe and Asia during the Early Pleistocene, must be completely wrong. For the present, we just want to consider why the Eolithic implements of England, by themselves, present problems for advocates of the currently accepted doctrines of human evolution.

We have seen that the eoliths of the Kent Plateau may be referred to the Pliocene period in England. The end of the Pliocene is generally placed at about 2 million years ago, although some place it at about 1.6 million years ago (Gowlett 1984, p. 200). Hugo Obermaier, one of the important scientists working in the field of paleoanthropology during the early twentieth century, wrote of “the eoliths from the chalk plateau of Kent in southern England, which belong to the Middle Pliocene” (1924, p. 8).

A Middle Pliocene date would make the eoliths of Kent 3–4 million years old. Most paleoanthropologists now put the origin of Homo sapiens of the fully modern type (technically known as Homo sapiens sapiens) at a maximum of 100,000 years before the present. The immediate forerunner of Homo sapiens sapiens, technically known as archaic Homo sapiens or early Homo sapiens, would date back only 200,000–300,000 years. Homo erectus, the supposed ancestor of early Homo sapiens, dates back roughly 1.5 million years in Africa (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 283), and Homo habilis, the supposed ancestor of Homo erectus, dates back only 2 million years. According to the standard account, the hominids of the Late and Middle Pliocene would have been very primitive australopithecines, none of which are thought to have been makers of stone tools.

Just for the sake of argument, let us suppose that the eoliths of the Kent Plateau can be referred to the very latest Pliocene, at about 2 million years b.p. This is, of course, too early for Homo sapiens. It is also too early for Homo erectus. Even if we push the first appearance of Homo erectus back further than 1.5 million years, the 2-million-year minimum age for the Eolithic implements of the Kent Plateau still causes some problems. According to the most widely accepted scenario of human evolution, Homo erectus was the first hominid to leave Africa, and did not do so any earlier than about a million years ago. Thus even an Early Pleistocene date for the Harrison implements from the Kent Plateau would be problematic.

Up to now, we have been speaking of the standard evolutionary account of human origins, with the major transitions taking place in Africa. But there is a second, less widely held version of the human evolutionary process. According to this account, the transition to Homo erectus and Homo sapiens took place not in Africa alone but across a wider geographical range (Gowlett 1984). This means that the precursors of Homo erectus, creatures like Homo habilis, must have already been existing outside Africa, perhaps as much as 2 million years ago. According to some scientists, Homo habilis made the very primitive stone tools found in the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge, tools very much like eoliths. It is therefore within the realm of theoretical possibility (for some paleoanthropologists) that a creature like Homo habilis may have made the eoliths found by Benjamin Harrison in England.

One would thus have to make relatively few changes in current theory to accommodate the Harrison eoliths. But once such evidence has been condemned, it must apparently remain so perpetually, with no chance of rehabilitation. Even scientists whose theories the tainted evidence might support ignore it. Why? Perhaps because if some relatively benign evidence of this kind were to be resurrected, then more threatening evidence might also emerge from the crypt.

3.6.2 East Anglian Tools and the African Origins Hypothesis

The implements discovered by J. Reid Moir pose a similar set of problems, which were, interestingly enough, recognized by a modern researcher (Coles 1968). Some of Moir’s discoveries in the Cromer Forest Bed were referred to the Middle Pleistocene. Others, from the Red Crag, were referred to the Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene. For the purposes of this discussion, we shall set aside implements from the detritus bed below the Red Crag, which could be dated anywhere from the Pliocene to the Eocene.

J. M. Coles (1968, p. 30) summarized his review of Moir’s East Anglian discoveries by stating: “in view of the evidence of early man in North Africa and in Southern Europe, there is nothing basically startling about the presence of human industries in East Anglia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. The axe from Sidestrand, if it is, in fact, a paleolithic tool and not a neolithic roughout in an erosion pocket, suggests that man was present during the Cromerian interglacial period, or early in Mindel times. This would not be out of step with the evidence of man’s presence in Europe . . . during these periods, but the character of the handaxe is rather surprising. But even more surprising would be the existence of a handaxe tradition encompassing the Whitlingham axe in the Norwich Crag phase, or pre-Günzian age, which at the moment would seem radically out of step with our evidence for early man and early industries, in both Africa and Europe. The evidence for humanly-struck flints at Foxhall, certainly the most puzzling of all the East Anglian sites, if accepted, would extend back to the earliest Villafranchian, and would indicate that an enormous gap in our evidence for early man existed, if we were to maintain our belief in an African origin.”

In suggesting, however obliquely, that the belief in an African origin might be open to question, Coles is, in the light of the most widely accepted view, verging on heresy. The early Villafranchian stage, in which Coles placed the Foxhall tools, belongs to the Late Pliocene, extending from 2.0 to 3.5 million years ago (Section 1.7). According to our conservative estimate, the Foxhall site would most likely fall toward the latter part of the early Villafranchian stage, between 2.0 and 2.5 million years before the present (Section 3.3.4). One would not expect to find toolmaking humans present in England at that time. According to the African origins story, one should find during that period, in Africa alone, just apelike Australopithecus, who is not thought to have been a toolmaker.

In Coles we see a modern establishment scientist approaching the point of giving serious consideration to one of the conclusions warranted by the evidence presented in this book, namely, that an African origin for the Homo line is a myth. Coles found himself confronted with a spectrum of anomalous evidence. Some of it was mildly surprising to him, some of it more surprising. This is to be expected—that there should be, in the range of evidence ignored by the scientific establishment, a certain number of cases that approach the borderlines of acceptability. However, in light of the evidence we have thus far considered, and evidence we shall consider in coming chapters, it is clear that the Late Pliocene discoveries Coles found most surprising are just the tip of an iceberg of anomalous evidence that extends into the depths of the Tertiary and beyond.

We suggest it is the threatening nature of this vast body of anomalous evidence that might cause establishment science to steadfastly refuse to consider even the borderline evidence. One thing leads to another. If the borderline evidence is admitted, then the more surprising evidence comes one step closer to acceptance. And then what very quickly happens, as Coles hinted, is that the African origins hypothesis evaporates. And then where would paleoanthropology be? Lost in a raging sea of evidence suggesting all kinds of impossible things. A strong sense of vertigo is bound to arise, because there is a lot of evidence, every bit as good as Moir’s discoveries, that puts human beings back as far as the Miocene (Sections 4.1–3), Oligocene (Section 4.4), and Eocene (Section 5.5). At that point, not only the idea of an African origin but also the whole concept of an evolutionary origin of the human species becomes untenable. And if scientists are forced to give up an evolutionary explanation of human origins, what does that say about the whole theory of evolution?

Those who have staked their prestige on the slogan “evolution is a fact not a theory” might counter that the evidence for evolution in general is “overwhelming.” There are, of course, millions of species that might be considered, but here we are focusing on one, the human species, and testing the hypothesis of its evolutionary origin. In this defined area of investigation, we have documented overwhelming evidence contradicting the proposal that the modern human type evolved from more apelike predecessors. Trying to avoid the implications of this thought-provoking evidence by bringing in ex cathedra claims of evolutionary progressions in the fossil histories of myriad other species is inappropriate.

3.6.3 Recent Pakistan Finds (Plio-Pleistocene Boundary)