Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Resistance to the idea that representatives of the Homo line may have been present outside Africa around 2 million years ago is apparent in reactions to some recent discoveries in Pakistan. These were reported in a New York Times News Service story appearing in the San Diego Union edition of August 30, 1987. The story told of “reports from British archaeologists working in northern Pakistan that they have found 2-million-year-old chopping tools believed to have been made by early humans.” The reports were from the British journal New Scientist. The news article continued: “If such a significantly earlier time of migration is established, it would presumably mean that a more primitive species in the human lineage, Homo habilis, was the first to leave Africa and did so soon after learning to make stone tools. The prevailing view now is that the later Homo erectus, which had a considerably larger brain capacity, initiated the human migration about a million years ago.” To those accepting the prevailing view, the English eoliths, discovered in the nineteenth century, and the new Pakistani stone tools, both at least 2 million years old, present a problem.

The article went on to explain how mainstream scientists considering the Pakistan tools dealt with this problem—they tried to discredit the discovery. “Sally McBrearty, an anthropologist at William and Mary College who has done research in Pakistan, complains that the discoverers ‘have not supplied enough evidence that the specimens are that old and that they are of human manufacture.’” Our review of anomalous stone implements should make us suspicious of this sort of claim. As we have seen, it is fairly typical procedure for scientists to demand higher levels of proof for anomalous finds than for evidence that fits within the established ideas about human evolution.

The New York Times News Service article then stated: “Like many experts, McBrearty was skeptical of the 2-million-year date because the discovery was made in a river plain, which is ‘not a good stratigraphical context.’ The sediment layers there have been so mixed up by flowing water over time that geologists have a hard time determining whether artifacts are embedded in their original sediments.” As previously noted, if this standard were to be applied uniformly, then there should be similar skepticism regarding many important paleoanthropological finds, which were also made in river plains and other places, such as caves, with poor stratigraphy. One good example is the famous Java man, the first bones of which were taken from a flood plain directly on the edge of a river.

Finally, the news service article stated: “Anthropologists also noted that pebbles fracture easily as they roll through flowing water, resulting in shapes that can be mistaken for artifacts.” Do these anthropologists think that the British scientists who discovered the implements in Pakistan were unaware of this problem, which has been the object of serious study for over a century? As we have seen earlier in this chapter (Sections 3.2.3, 3.2.5, and 3.2.11), authorities ranging from Sir John Prestwich (1892, p. 256; 1895, and p. 625) to Leland W. Patterson (1983, p. 108) have pointed out that fortuitous damage to stones in stream beds can be clearly distinguished from intentional human work.

Now let us look at the report on the discovery of the Pakistani tools published in New Scientist, and see how it matches up with the newspaper statements of scientists critical of the find. In the New York Times New Service story, Sally McBrearty strongly suggested that the reported 2-million-year date for the Pakistani implements was very uncertain, but New Scientist stated: “These artefacts are surprisingly old, but the date is convincing” (Bunney 1987, p. 36). McBrearty also claimed that the stratigraphic context was not good, hinting that if the objects were tools, they did not belong to the beds where they were found.

But the New Scientist stated: “Such doubts do not apply in the case of the stone pieces from the Soan Valley southeast of Rawalpindi, argues Robin Dennell, the field director of the Paleolithic Project of the British Archaeological Mission and the University of Sheffield. He and his colleague Helen Rendell, a geologist at the University of Sussex, report that the stone pieces, all of quartzite, were so firmly embedded in a deposit of conglomerate and gritstone called the Upper Siwalik series, that they had to chisel them out” (Bunney 1987, p. 36). According to the New Scientist, the dating was accomplished using a combination of paleomagnetic and stratigraphic studies.

The New York Times News Service article left the reader with the strong impression that the objects in question were quite probably formed by random concussion in stream beds, and it did not mention any of the evidence in favor of their human manufacture. However, the New Scientist gave its readers with a more balanced treatment: “Of the pieces that they extracted, eight, Dennell believes are ‘definite artefacts.’In Dennell’s view, the least equivocal artefact is a piece of quartzite that a hominid individual supposedly struck in three directions with a hammer stone, removing seven flakes from it [Figure 3.27]. This multifaceted flaking together with the fresh appearance of the scars left on the remaining ‘core’ make a ‘very convincing’ case for human involvement, Dennell told New Scientist” (Bunney 1987, p. 36). So what is going on with the find in Pakistan? It appears we may have a recent example of scientists being unable to objectively evaluate evidence that contradicts their preconceptions about the progress of human evolution.

Figure 3.27. A stone tool discovered in the Upper Siwalik formation in Pakistan (Bunney1987, p. 36). British scientists estimated its age at about 2 million years.

In this case, we find that scientists holding the view that Homo erectus was the first representative of the Homo line to leave Africa, and did so about a million years ago, were apparently quite determined to discredit stone tools found in Pakistan, about 2 million years old, rather than modify their ideas. We can just imagine how such scientists would react to stone tools found in Miocene contexts.

3.6.4 Siberia and India (Early Pleistocene to Late Pliocene)

Many other discoveries of stone implements around 2 million years old have been made at other Asian sites, in Siberia and northwestern India. Turning first to Siberia, let us consider what A. P. Okladinov and L. A. Ragozin called the riddle of Ulalinka. These two scientists reported in 1984: “Quite recently it was thought that the Siberia Paleolithic was not more than 20–25,000 years ago. Everything changed after a Paleolithic site, bearing no similarities with any site known before, was discovered in 1961 on the slopes of the steep bank of the Ulalinka River, at the edge of the city of Gorno-Altaisk, the capital of the autonomous oblast. Stone tools of primeval man were found here in the form of cobble stones only partially worked over by a coarse chipping. Half or even two-thirds of such a stone retained its original pebbly surface, a kind of scale, which had been removed only at the working end of the tool, at its cutting edge. A person not acquainted with the technology of those remote times would have tossed this stone away, seeing nothing striking in it. But the stone from Ulalinka can tell an archaeologist, a specialist in such things, a great deal” (Okladinov and Ragozin 1984, p. 5). Six hundred such tools were found at Ulalinka.

After the discovery of the implements, geologists dated the Ulalinka site at 40,000 years. This dating poses no particular problems for modern ideas about human evolution. The tools could have been made by anatomically modern Homo sapiens, or perhaps by some late survivals of a Neanderthal population in Siberia. But subsequent studies put the Ulalinka site in the late Middle Pleistocene, giving ages that range from 150,000 to 400,000 years (Okladinov and Ragozin 1984, pp. 5–6). Then, in 1977, Okladinov and Ragozin conducted new excavations and determined that the implement-bearing stratum was much older than scientists previously thought. They stated: “the pebble tools belong to the middle part of the Kochkov horizon, the Podpusk-Lebiazh’e layers, formed roughly 2.5 million to 1.5 million years ago. This conclusion was confirmed by thermoluminescent analysis done by A. I. Shliukov, Director of the Geochronology Group of the Faculty of Geography of the Moscow State University. . . . it was found that the cultural layer with the Ulalinka pebble tools was more than 1.5 million years old” (Okladinov and Ragozin 1984, pp. 11–12). The faunal remains at the site were comparable to the middle Villafranchian (Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene) of Europe (Okladinov and Ragozin 1984, p. 12).

Okladinov and Ragozin (1984, p. 12) also reported: “Similar pebble tools were found in China, together with two knives made of hominid incisor teeth. This is the so-called Yuanmou man. His age, according to paleomagnetic data, is from 1.5 to 3.1 million years; the accepted date is 1.7 million years.”

Okladinov and Ragozin (1984, p. 14) then posed a question: “was the Ulalinka man an aborigine or did he come in from somewhere else?” It was possible, they stated, that the ancestors of Ulalinka man had migrated from Africa. If so, the migration must have occurred well over 1.5 million years ago, and the being that migrated would therefore have been Homo habilis.

But the Russian scientists apparently had some patriotic impulse, and favored the idea that the ancestors of the Ulalinka hominid had not migrated from elsewhere. Okladinov and Ragozin (1984, pp. 15–19) therefore proposed an extensive search for skeletal remains of a possible ancestor of Ulalinka man in Siberia, hinting that Siberia, not Africa, might very well have been the cradle of humanity. In a paleoanthropological reflection of the wider Sino-Soviet conflict, Okladinov and Ragozin (1984, p. 18) proposed: “It is not impossible that Sinanthropus [Peking man] stems from the Ulalinka hominids.” In other words, China man came from Russia man. The Chinese, however, believed the reverse to be true.

Okladinov and Ragozin were not the first scientists to broach the idea that human beings evolved within the borders of the former Soviet Union. Alexander Mongait, an archeologist, wrote (1959, p. 64): “today it may be surmised that Transcaucasia was within the vast zone where man first appeared. . . . In 1939, the remains of an anthropoid ape, which lived at the end of the Tertiary period, was found in Eastern Georgia in a locality called Udabno. It was named Udabnopithec. This find confirmed the possibility that mankind originated in Trans-Caucasia (in addition to other regions embracing South Asia, South Europe, and Northeast Africa). But in order to substantiate this hypothesis, science needed the chief link—if not the remains of primitive man himself, then at least the most ancient implements of labor. In 1946–48, S. M. Sardaryan and M. Z. Panichkina, while surveying Satani-dar (Mount Satan), which is situated close to Mount Bogutlu in Armenia, found crude obsidian implements of the most ancient forms dating from the Chellean period; to date, these implements are the most ancient of the archaeological finds in the U.S.S.R. and make up yet another link in the chain of facts proving that the southern areas of the Soviet Union were part of the region where man grew out of the animal state.”

Another scientist, Yuri Mochanov, discovered stone tools resembling the European eoliths at a site overlooking the Lena River at Diring Yurlakh, Siberia. The formations from which these implements were recovered were dated by potassium-argon and magnetic methods to 1.8 million years before the present. Mochanov, leaving aside the standard African origins concept, proposed the simultaneous emergence of man in Siberia and Africa during the very early Pleistocene. Mochanov stated: “I couldn’t believe my eye, at first. After all, I had always argued against finding such primitive pebble tools in this part of Siberia” (Daniloff and Kopf 1986). Some have argued that Siberia was too cold for human habitation. But Pavel Melnikov, director of the Permafrost Institute at Yakutsk, stated that “paleobotanists, studying pollens and seeds in ancient layers, have concluded that the Siberian climate a million years ago was much like today and could have supported people” (Daniloff and Kopf 1986). There is no reason to rule out the possibility that these toolmaking people might have been very much like modern Homo sapiens. And here is something else to consider—if the climate was like that of today these ancient Siberians surely would have needed clothing, indicating an advanced level of culture.

Recent evidence from India also takes us back about 2 million years. Many discoveries of stone tools have been made in the Siwalik Hills region of northwestern India. The Siwaliks derive their name from the demigod Shiva (Sanskrit Siva), the lord of the forces of universal destruction. Roop Narain Vasishat, an anthropologist at Punjab University, objected strongly to the idea that “the Siwalik hominoids did not evolve into hominids and the prehistoric stone tool making man in this region was an intruder from outside” (1985, pp. xiv–xv). Some Indian scientists, like the Russians and Chinese, believe that the key steps in human evolution took place within their nation.

In 1981, Anek Ram Sankhyan, of the Anthropological Survey of India, North Western Region, reported: “the author recovered a Palaeolithic implement from the Upper Siwalik horizon, about 8 kms [5 miles] east of Haritalyangar village” (1981, p. 358). Sankhyan offered this description of the implement: “The stone tool under reference is a typical Bifacial Chopper made on a large darkcoloured quartzite cobble, 12.5 cm [4.9 inches] in length, 9.3 cm [3.7 inches] in breadth, and 6.5 cm [2.6 inches] in maximum thickness at the butt end. The core exhibits multiple flaking scars on nearly half of its surface on both sides forming a sharp and broad cutting edge. One surface is smoothly flaked and tapering whereas the other carried a large and deep flake scar, besides other smaller flake scars near the edge. The butt end is unworked and rounded for a comfortable grasp” (1981, pp. 358–359).

On the age of the implement, Sankhyan (1981, p. 358) reported: “The stone tool was recovered from a thin band of pebbles distributed in patches over a grey shale horizon. . . . Prasad (1971) assigns these beds to the Tatrot Formation (Upper Pliocene).” Sankhyan subsequently discovered many more stone tools apparently from the same Tatrot horizon (1983, pp. 126–127). Other Indian researchers have made similar finds in the same area.

The above-mentioned Siberian and Indian discoveries, at 1.5–2.5 million years old, do not agree very well with the standard view that Homo erectus was the first representative of the Homo line to emigrate from Africa, doing so about a million years ago. But, as previously mentioned, they might agree with the view that creatures like Homo habilis migrated from Africa about 2 million years ago. One prominent scientist expressing this view is John Gowlett of Oxford. Gowlett wrote (1984 p. 59): “Although it is sometimes suggested that human occupation of the East only started with the migration of Homo [erectus] from Africa at the beginning of the Pleistocene, this seems unlikely. Some of the very first fossil hominid remains ever found are those of Homo erectus from Java, which can hardly have been the first stop on a migration route. In addition to these historic finds made by Eugene Dubois in 1891 near the Solo River, other more primitive specimens have since been discovered in the older Djetis beds.” The Djetis beds were given a potassium-argon date of 1.9 million years (Jacob 1972; Gowlett 1984, p. 59). But subsequent tests (Bartstra 1978; Nilsson 1983, p. 329) gave the Djetis beds a far younger date of less than 1 million years. In Chapter 7, we shall see that the Java Homo erectus discoveries are, however, all highly questionable, because they are practically all surface discoveries. This means that the stratigraphic context, and consequently the dates, are not firmly established.

In any case, Gowlett (1984, p. 58) proposed: “Human evolution is likely to have taken place across a continuous band of the tropics and subtropics. . . . our only certain evidence comes from a thin scattering of archaeological sites and human remains. These testify directly to the early occupation of large areas, including southern Africa and the Far East, from 2 or 3 million years ago.” Gowlett did not offer very much further in the way of detail, but from the whole of his discussion it would appear he was suggesting that Homo habilis and perhaps even the australopithecines were spread widely throughout this region 2–3 million years ago. In this case, why did Gowlett not mention the Eolithic implements of England, also 2–3 million years old? It would seem they would have lent support to his hypothesis.

There come to mind at least three reasons why Gowlett did not mention the English eoliths in connection with his hypotheses about human evolution: (1) he was aware of the discoveries of Harrison, Moir, and others, but accepted the verdict of Barnes and others that they were products of natural forces; (2) he was aware of the Early Pleistocene and Late Pliocene eoliths of England but hesitated to mention them because of their embarrassing connection with older eoliths from the Early Pliocene, Miocene, and earlier periods; (3) he was unaware of the discoveries.

Many modern students of paleoanthropology are in fact completely unaware of reports of crude stone tool industries from the Tertiary and early Quaternary.

Why? The eolith evidence was buried decades ago by skeptical scientists, at a time when it did not fit in so well with then current theories of human evolution. During the 1930s, the oldest human ancestors completely accepted by science were the Java Homo erectus and Peking Homo erectus, which dated back to the Middle Pleistocene, about a half million years ago. This did not leave any place for a toolmaking being in England during the Early Pleistocene, 1–2 million years ago or Late Pliocene, 2–3 million years ago. Now, the understanding of human evolution has changed, and there are some versions with which the English eolith evidence seems somewhat compatible. But hardly any scientists are now familiar with the discoveries of Harrison or Moir. So here is a good argument for not burying controversial evidence so deeply that it is hardly remembered—it may become relevant in light of future developments.

Again, it should be kept clearly in mind that in discussing how the English eoliths relate to modern evolutionary scenarios centering on a Late Pleistocene origin of the human species, we are deliberately excluding from consideration the extensive evidence (in the form of incised and broken animal bones, stone implements, and modern human skeletal remains) that places humans of the modern type in the Early Pliocene, the Miocene, and even more distant geological periods. When this evidence is admitted into the discussion, as we believe it should be, the discovery of stone implements in the Pliocene in England or anywhere else poses no particular problems.

Where has all of the preceding discussion left us? The main conclusion is that most modern paleoanthropologists are unable to cope with stone tools from periods and places that even slightly deviate from entrenched ideas about the time for the migration of the Homo line out of its Africa homeland. Evidence is submitted to intense negative criticism for no other reason than that it conflicts with established views. If this is true of evidence that lies on the very borderline of acceptability, then what kind of treatment can one expect for otherwise good evidence that happens to lie completely beyond the range of current expectations, such as the Miocene implements discovered in France and Portugal (Sections 4.1–3)? Silence and ridicule are the receptions most likely to be encountered.

Of course, even after having heard all of the arguments for eoliths being of human manufacture, arguments which will certainly prove convincing to many, some might still legitimately maintain a degree of doubt. Could such a person, it might be asked, be forgiven for not accepting the eoliths? The answer to that question is a qualified yes. The qualification is that one should then reject other stone tool industries of a similar nature. This would mean the rejection of large amounts of currently accepted lithic evidence, including for example, the Oldowan industries of East Africa and the crude stone tool industry of Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien) in China.

3.7 Acceptable Eoliths: The Stone Tools of Zhoukoudian and Olduvai Gorge

We shall now examine some stone tools broadly similar to but in some cases even more primitive than European eoliths such as those found by Benjamin Harrison and J. Reid Moir. Unlike the European eoliths, these implements are unquestioningly accepted by modern paleoanthropologists. It would seem, however, that if tools comparable to the European eoliths are considered genuine, then to be consistent, the European eoliths should also be accepted as genuine.

3.7.1 Accepted Implements from Zhoukoudian (Middle Pleistocene)

One industry similar to the European Eolithic industries is that found at Zhoukoudian, the site of the Peking man discoveries. The Zhoukoudian tools, comprising natural flakes modified with unifacial chipping, compare favorably with the European eoliths. In fact, the crudeness of the tools at Zhoukoudian (Figure 3.28) was unexpected. Peking man was classified as Homo erectus, who in Europe and Africa was usually associated with the more advanced bifacially flaked Acheulean implements. Anthropologist Alan Lyle Bryan (1986, p. 7) stated: “less than 2% of the 100,000 artifacts recovered from the living floors at Zhoukoudian Locality I exhibit bifacial edge retouch.”

Zhang Shensui of China described the implements from the lower levels of Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian: “Tools fashioned from cores, pebbles and small chunks of stone outnumber those made on flake blanks. This assemblage is typologically simple, consisting primarily of choppers and scrapers. Points and gravers occur only rarely and are very crudely retouched” (Zhang 1985, p. 168). When illustrations of the eoliths found on the Kent Plateau and in East Anglia (Figures 3.3, p. 95; 3.6, p. 121; 3.12, and p. 136) are set alongside those of tools from Zhoukoudian, we do not notice much of a difference in workmanship.

Figure 3.28. These tools from the Zhoukoudian cave seem cruder than the anomalously old Pliocene and Miocene eoliths of Europe (Black et. al. 1933, pp. 115, 131, 132).

3.7.2 The Oldowan Industry (Early Pleistocene)

A second industry very much like the European eoliths is the Oldowan industry, initially discovered by Mary and Louis Leakey in Beds I and II of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, during the 1930s. Many of the Oldowan implements were described by Mary Leakey in the third volume of Olduvai Gorge, published by the Cambridge University Press in 1971.

From the published reports, which is all we really have to go on, it is not possible to easily distinguish European eoliths, such as those collected by Harrison on the Kent Plateau, from some of the Oldowan tools. This is readily seen in the illustrations in Mary Leakey’s book, which show the apparent identity between the two types. Although made of different kinds of stone, they look remarkably alike. Furthermore, Leakey’s verbal descriptions could just as well be applied to eoliths. One might say that there are subtle distinctions not revealed in the reports, but then what does that say about the quality of scientific reporting on stone tool industries?

Mary Leakey stated that the Oldowan industry was found in locations ranging from upper Bed I to the base of Bed II at Olduvai Gorge. Describing the primary Oldowan industry, she stated: “It is characterised by choppers of various forms, polyhedrons, discoids, scrapers, occasional hammer stones, utilised cobbles and light-duty utilised flakes” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 1). In Bed II, Leakey found an industry she called Developed Oldowan, which contained more spheroid types than the Oldowan. Bed II also yielded a second industry, Developed Oldowan B, which contained some bifacially flaked tools (less than 40 percent of the assemblage). Bifacially flaked tools are those with chipping on both surfaces of the edges. In the upper part of Middle Bed II, there occurred Acheulean assemblages, in which more than 40 percent of the tools were bifacially flaked. Even these were still quite crude. According to Leakey, “The Acheulean appears to be an early form in which the bifaces exhibit minimal flaking and considerable individual variation” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 2). The Acheulean type of Olduvai appears to correspond with the Paleolithic implements described by Harrison and Prestwich, while the Oldowan type, especially its unifacially flaked specimens, appears to roughly correspond with the flint implements described as eoliths. We shall mainly concern ourselves with the Oldowan industry.

The majority of the Oldowan tools were classified as “choppers,” made of volcanic cobblestone and also of quartz and quartzite. Leakey stated: “These are essentially jagged and lack secondary trimming, although utilisation has often resulted in the edges having been chipped and blunted” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 1). In other words, these are even cruder than the eoliths of the Kent Plateau, most of which display some form of intentional secondary trimming. Careful searching, however, has failed to reveal a single published challenge to the authenticity of the Oldowan specimens as genuine human artifacts.

One might argue that hominid fossils have been recovered at Olduvai Gorge, while none were found on the Kent Plateau. It should, however, be noted that crude stone tools were being excavated at Olduvai Gorge by Louis and Mary Leakey for decades before any currently accepted hominid fossil remains were recovered. In 1959, the Leakeys discovered the first fossil bones of a new primitive apelike hominid, which they regarded as humanlike and named Zinjanthropus (Section 11.4.1). They initially attributed the stone tools of Olduvai Gorge to Zinjanthropus. Not long thereafter, however, the bones of a more advanced hominid, Homo habilis, were found nearby (Section 11.4.2). Zinjanthropus was demoted from his status as toolmaker, and Homo habilis replaced him.

But although the designation of the toolmaker was changed, the tools themselves remained unquestioned. The principal reason why the implements discovered in Olduvai Gorge have not been subjected to the same sorts of challenges directed at the eoliths discovered in Europe is hinted at in the following statement made by Mary Leakey (1971, p. 280): “evidence for the manufacture of tools by means of using one tool as an instrument to make another is one of the most important criteria in deciding whether any particular taxon has reached the status of man. . . . If evidence of toolmaking is not counted as a decisive factor for the human status it is difficult to see what alternative can be used for determining at what point it had been reached. Evolutionary changes must have been so gradual that it will never be possible for the threshold to be recognised on the evidence of fossil bones alone. This would be true even if a far more complete evolutionary sequence of material were available for study: with the scanty and often incomplete material that has survived it is clearly out of the question. An arbitrary definition based on cranial capacity is also of doubtful value, since the significance of cranial capacity is closely linked with stature or body size, of which we have little precise information in respect of early hominids.”

Scientists almost unanimously accept the idea that the genus Homo arose in Africa, developing from the australopithecine hominids around 2 million years ago. The strong need for stone tools as corroborating evidence of humanlike status may thus explain, at least in part, the extremely lenient treatment of the Oldowan industry. If they were not accepted as tools, that would greatly detract from the status of the African hominids as human ancestors.

In her report on Olduvai Gorge, Mary Leakey identified, besides the choppers previously mentioned, several other types of implements, which, from her descriptions, appear to correspond to the eoliths found in Europe. She described “various fragments of no particular form but generally angular, which bear a minimum of flaking and some evidence of utilisation” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6).

Another category of Oldowan tools was scrapers of various types. Leakey described the heavy-duty scrapers of Bed II, which were fashioned from quartzite flakes, as follows: “Many of the heavy-duty scrapers are impossible to assign to any particular type and consist merely of amorphous pieces of lava, quartz, or quartzite, with at least one flat surface from which steep trimming has been carried out along one edge” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). About “discoidal scrapers,” Leakey wrote: “the tools are seldom entirely symmetrical and they are usually trimmed on only part of the circumference” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). These scrapers conform to the descriptions of the eoliths discovered on the Kent Plateau of England.

Another type similar to a common variety of eolith was the nosed scraper. About this type of tool, Leakey stated: “There is a median projection on the working edge, either bluntly pointed, rounded, or occasionally spatulate, flanked on either side by a trimmed notch or, more rarely, by straight convergent trimmed edges” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). Hollow scrapers, with a broad curved indentation on one side of the stone forming the working edge, are another type common both to the Eolithic and Oldowan assemblages. Leakey described this type as follows: “Specimens in which the notch is unquestionably prepared are relatively scarce in both the heavyand light-duty groups, although light-duty flakes and other fragments with notches apparently caused by utilisation are common” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). In other words, on these Oldowan specimens, as in the case of eoliths, the working edge of the stone had simply been modified by slight chipping or use.

One of the more remarkable coincidences of form may be found in the presence of tools called awls or borers in both Eolithic and Oldowan assemblages. Of the awls in the Developed Oldowan, Mary Leakey (1971, p. 7) stated: “They are characterized by short, rather thick, pointed projections, generally at the distal ends of flakes, but sometimes on a lateral edge. In the majority, the points are formed by a trimmed notch, on either one or both sides, but occasionally by straight convergent trimmed edges. The points are often blunted by use and have sometimes been snapped off at the base.” This description perfectly applies to the awls collected and displayed by both Harrison and Moir. The identity of the Oldowan and English specimens is very much evident in Figure 3.5 (p. 96).

About the above-mentioned light-duty flakes and fragments, Leakey wrote: “Flakes and other small fragments with chipping and blunting on the edges occur in both the Oldowan and developed Oldowan but are more common in the latter. They fall into three groups: (a) with straight edges; (b) with concave or notched edges; (c) with convex edges. There is also a miscellaneous group with indeterminate chipping. In specimens with straight edges, chipping is usually evident on both sides, while in the notched and convex series it is usually only present on one face” (M. Leakey 1971, pp. 7–8). Leakey also described “lightduty utilised flakes” (Figure 3.29). Of these, she stated: “The utilised edges are sharp, with ‘nibbled’ one-directional flaking, which is sometimes present on two of the edges” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 37). The above descriptions could also apply to many of the European eoliths.

3.7.3 Who Made the Eolithic and Oldowan Implements?

Now comes a crucial question: to what sort of being should the manufacture of the quite similar Oldowan and Eolithic tool types be assigned? Most of the tools in both the Oldowan and Eolithic assemblages are very crude. Scientists are prepared to accept practically without question that the Oldowan implements were made by Homo habilis, a primitive hominid species which, according to modern paleoanthropological thought, marks the initial transition from the australopithecine hominids to the genus Homo. It should not, therefore, be completely unthinkable for scientists to entertain the possibility that a creature like Homo habilis might also have made the eoliths from East Anglia and the Kent Plateau, some of which are roughly comparable in age to the Oldowan tools.

Figure 3.29. Top: Light-duty utilized flakes from Olduvai Gorge, Africa (M. Leakey 1971, p. 38). Bottom: Flaked flint implements from the Red Crag formation at Foxhall, England (Moir 1927, p. 34). The Olduvai specimens appear cruder and look less like implements than the specimens from England.

But of some of the Oldowan tools J. Desmond Clark wrote in his forward to Mary Leakey’s study: “Here are artefacts that conventional usage associates typologically with much later times (the late Paleolithic or even later)—diminutive scraper forms, awls, burins . . . and a grooved and pecked cobble” (M. Leakey 1971, p. xvi). The same is true of the European Eolithic assemblages. As we noted in our introduction to this chapter, implements of a more advanced character sometimes turn up in even the crudest of industries.

We note, however, that tools of the type found in the “late Paleolithic and even later” are considered by modern scientists to be specifically the work of Homo sapiens rather than Homo erectus or Homo habilis. We might thus entertain the possibility that anatomically modern humans were responsible for some if not all of the Oldowan and Eolithic tools.

The standard reply will be that there are no fossils showing that humans of the fully modern type were around then, in the Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene, roughly 1–2 million years ago, whereas there are fossils of Homo habilis. But the history of events at Olduvai Gorge demonstrates that one should be careful about connecting fossil bones with stone tools. As we have seen, the Leakeys first found stone tools but no hominid fossils. When fossils of Zinjanthropus were found, this creature was designated as the toolmaker. But when additional fossils of the more advanced Homo habilis were found, Homo habilis replaced Zinjanthropus as the toolmaker. One cannot predict what further fossils might be found in the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge. Perhaps scientists might uncover fossils of Homo sapiens, who would then replace Homo habilis as the toolmaker.

Even in the absence of Homo sapiens remains, the advanced nature of some of the Oldowan tools raises questions about the correctness of attributing their manufacture to a creature as primitive as Homo habilis. The Leakeys found in Bed I of Olduvai Gorge bola stones and an apparent leather-working tool that might have been used to fashion leather cords for the bolas (Section 5.3.2). Using bola stones to capture game would seem to require a degree of intelligence and dexterity beyond that possessed by Homo habilis. This concern is heightened by the recent discovery of a relatively complete skeleton of Homo habilis, which shows this hominid to have been far more apelike than scientists previously imagined (Section 11.7).

It should be kept in mind that Homo sapiens fossils are quite rare even at Late Pleistocene sites where, according to conventional views, they should be expected to be found. Marcellin Boule (Boule and Vallois 1957, p. 145) noted that scientists searching for human fossils in the Prince’s Cave at Grimaldi in southern Europe sifted through four thousand cubic yards of deposits without finding a single human bone. Nevertheless, stone tools and animal remains were both abundant in the cave. Thus the absence of Homo sapiens fossils at a particular site does not eliminate Homo sapiens as the maker of stone tools found there.

Furthermore, as described in Chapters 6 and 11, fossil skeletal remains of human beings of the fully modern type have been discovered by scientists in strata at least as old as the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Among them may be numbered the fossil human skeleton discovered in 1913 by Dr. Hans Reck in Bed II of Olduvai Gorge (Section 11.1), and some fossil human femurs discovered by Richard Leakey at Lake Turkana, Kenya, in a formation slightly older than Bed I at Olduvai (Section 11.3). Bed I is now dated at approximately

1.75 million years, and the top of bed II is dated at about 0.7–1.0 million years (M. Leakey 1971, pp. 14–15).

It is, therefore, not correct to say that there is no fossil evidence whatsoever for a fully human presence in the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge. In addition to fossil evidence, we have a report from Mary Leakey (1971, p. 24) about a controversial circular formation of stones at the DK site in lower Bed I: “On the north side, where the circle was best preserved, there were groups of stones piled up into small heaps. It is possible to identify six of these piles which rise to a height of 6–9 in. and are spaced at intervals of 2–2.5 ft., suggesting that they may have been placed as supports for branches or poles stuck into the ground to form a windbreak or rough shelter.”

Leakey then continued: “In general appearance the circle resembles temporary structures often made by present-day nomadic peoples who build a low stone wall round their dwellings to serve either as a windbreak or as a base to support upright branches which are bent over and covered with either skins or grass” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 24). For the purpose of illustration, Mary Leakey provided a photograph of such a temporary shelter made by the Okombambi tribe of South West Africa (now Namibia).

Not everyone agreed with Leakey’s interpretation of the stone circle. But accepting Leakey’s version, the obvious question may be raised: if she believed the structure resembled those made by “present-day nomadic peoples” like the Okombambi, then why could she not assume that anatomically modern humans made the Olduvai stone circle 1.75 million years ago?

The same assumption might easily be made about even the crudest stone tools. Leakey stated in her book: “An interesting present-day example of unretouched flakes used as cutting tools has recently been recorded in SouthWest Africa and may be mentioned briefly. An expedition from the State Museum, Windhoek, discovered two stone-using groups of the Ova Tjimba people who not only make choppers for breaking open bones and for other heavy work, but also employ simple flakes, un-retouched and un-hafted, for cutting and skinning” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 269). Nothing, therefore, prevents one from entertaining the possibility that anatomically modern humans might have been responsible for even the crudest stone tools found at Olduvai Gorge and the European eolith sites.

At present, we find that humans manufacture stone tools of various levels of sophistication, from primitive to advanced. We also find evidence of the same variety of tools in the Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene, and even as far back as the Eocene. There are examples of relatively crude stone tools, such as those found by Ribeiro in Miocene formations in Portugal (Section 4.1). And there are also advanced stone tools, similar to those used by modern Indians in North America, from formations of Eocene antiquity in California (Section 5.5).

The simplest explanation is that anatomically modern humans, who make such a spectrum of tools today, also made them in the past. Continuity of tool types suggests continuity of toolmakers. We might call this the hypothesis of stasis. Alternatively, the evolutionary hypothesis requires us to reject all advanced stone tool industries from periods earlier than the Late Pleistocene. As for the remaining crude stone tools, we must reject the ones found in geological contexts older than the earliest Pleistocene or the latest Pliocene. We must then propose that various grades of subhumans made crude stone tools in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, and then when modern humans came along in the Middle and Late Pleistocene, they also made identical crude tools along with more advanced ones.

All in all, the hypothesis of stasis allows us to account for all the reported evidence in a more straightforward fashion. The only anomaly in this account of stasis is the absence of evidence for advanced civilization, with its intricate metallic productions and complex stone architecture, in very ancient times. Abundant evidence for such civilization appears to extend back only a few thousand years. There are, however, intriguing hints of the existence of advanced civilization millions of years ago. This evidence, reported in Appendix 2, is, however, not very extensive.

Granting the stasis hypothesis, we must therefore ask the following question. Why are there so many scientific reports of stone tools and cut bones indicating the presence of anatomically modern humans tens of millions of years ago yet so little evidence of more advanced civilization for the same time periods?

Here is one possible explanation. Although the scientists who reported much of the evidence contained in this book were prepared to find signs of a human presence in times far more ancient than allowed by current evolutionary theory, these scientists were themselves evolutionists. As such, they believed that in the past culture was more primitive than today. Therefore, they probably would not have given serious consideration to any evidence of advanced culture in very ancient times.

Did they encounter such evidence but refuse to report it? We cannot say for certain. What we do know is that evidence for advanced civilizations in very ancient times has been reported, but not often by scientists. Many of the reports have come from miners. Such reports are far more likely to turn up in old newspapers than scientific journals. We suspect that many finds suggestive of advanced civilizations in very ancient times have not been reported at all.

It is thus possible that our data base for the study of human origins and antiquity is quite incomplete. But what evidence we do have suggests that anatomically modern humans have been manufacturing stone tools of various degrees of sophistication since the Miocene and earlier.

To further complicate the picture, one could imagine Homo sapiens coexisting millions of years ago with species of humanlike apes, unrelated to human beings in any evolutionary sense. These humanlike creatures may have also been able to manufacture very crude stone implements. There are in fact reports from Central Asia of a living ape-man-like creature, the Almas, which is said to break stones for use as tools (Section 10.8), just like modern humans. Indeed, this is what the unedited record of skeletal remains and stone implements actually suggests—that human beings of modern type and more primitive creatures have been coexisting since time immemorial and manufacturing a whole array of tool types, from the crudest to the most advanced.

3.8 Recent Examples of Eolithic Implements from the Americas

Several anomalously old crude stone tool industries of Eolithic type have been discovered in the Americas. A careful study of the debates about these industries will add to our understanding of why and how the stone tools from Pliocene and Miocene sites in Europe have largely disappeared from view, as far as modern science is concerned.

3.8.1 Standard Views on the Entry of Humans Into North America

The debates about various anomalous stone tool industries discovered in the Americas takes place in the context of the standard theory of the entry of humans into the New World. According to this theory, Siberian hunters crossed over the Bering Strait into Alaska on a land bridge that existed when the last glaciation lowered sea levels. During this glacial period, the Canadian ice sheet blocked southward migration until about 12,000 years ago, when the first American immigrants followed an ice free passage to what is now the United States. These people were the so-called Clovis hunters, famous for their characteristic doubly fluted spearpoints. These would correspond to the highly evolved stone implements of the later Paleolithic in Europe.

According to Jared Diamond (1987), these Clovis hunters quickly multiplied and peopled the entire habitable region of North and South America. Because a site in Patagonia, in the southernmost part of South America, is now dated at 10,500 years, the immigrants must have gone from the arctic, to the tropics, and on to the near antarctic regions of South America in little more than a thousand years. In their long march, these Clovis hunters exterminated over 70 percent of the large mammalian genera of the New World in an orgy of rapacious exploitation rivaled only by the European heirs of the territory they conquered (Diamond 1987, pp. 82–88).

The following arguments in favor of this theory were published in the popular science magazine, Discover, in June of 1987: “at excavated Clovis sites, conclusive evidence for artifacts made by other peoples has been found above but not below the level with Clovis tools; and there are no irrefutable human remains with irrefutable pre-Clovis dates anywhere in the New World south of the former Canadian ice sheet. Mind you, there are dozens of claims of sites with pre-Clovis human evidence, but all are marred by serious questions about whether the material used for radiocarbon dating was contaminated by older carbon, or whether the dated material was really associated with human remains, or whether the tools supposedly made by hand were just naturally shaped rocks. In contrast, the evidence for Clovis is undeniable, widely distributed, and accepted by archaeologists” (Diamond 1987, pp. 84, 86).

To put this theory into perspective, we should note that before World War II, anthropological authorities insisted that human beings first entered America just 4,000 years ago. Their initial reaction to the Clovis hunter theory was summed up by the anthropologist John Alsoszatai-Petheo (1986, pp. 18–19): “For . . . decades, American archaeologists would labor under the view of man’s relative recency in the New World, while the mere mention of the possibility of greater antiquity was tantamount to professional suicide. Given this orientation, it is not surprising that when the evidence of the antiquity of man in America was finally reported from Folsom, Clovis, and other High Plains sites, it was rejected out of hand by established authorities despite the clear nature of the evidence at multiple locations, uncovered by different researchers, and seen and attested to by a large variety of professional visitor/observers. . . . The mind set of conservatives of the day left no room for acceptance.”

Alsoszatai-Petheo argued that the history of the rejection of the Folsom and Clovis discoveries is now being repeated as conservative archeologists of the present day staunchly reject evidence for pre-Clovis man in America. Certainly, there are now many cases of archeological excavations using modern methods that have yielded dates as great as 30,000 years for humans in America.

For example, geological, archeological, and paleontological research at El Cedral, in the state of Sinaloa, northern Mexico, revealed human artifacts along with bones of extinct animals in “undisturbed stratified deposits on horizons radiocarbon-dated at 33,000 b.p., 31,850 b.p., 21,960±540 b.p., and older than 15,000 b.p.” (Lorenzo and Mirambell 1986, p. 107). The date of 31,850 b.p. corresponds to a hearth found in situ and consisting of “a circle of proboscidean tarsal bones surrounding a zone of charcoal about 30 cm [a foot] in diameter and 2 cm [almost an inch] thick” (Lorenzo and Mirambell 1986, p. 111). Proboscideans are elephants of various kinds. Tarsal bones come from the ankle region.

Another case involves a fire pit found on California’s Santa Rosa Island, off Santa Barbara, and investigated by archeologist Rainer Berger of UCLA. Laboratory testing showed that charcoal samples taken from the pit contained no measurable carbon 14. They are thus older than the 40,000-year limit imposed by the conventional radiocarbon dating method. The find is significant, since the fire pit contained crude chopping tools along with the bones of a bull-sized species of mammoth (Science News 1977a, p. 196).

Yet another interesting excavation took place in northeastern Brazil. At the rock-shelter of Boquierão do Sitio da Pedra Furada, a joint French-Brazilian team of archeologists dug through a stratified 3-meter [10-foot] deposit of sediment that was found to contain human occupational debris at all levels. The lowest levels included big circular hearths with large quantities of charcoal and ash. There were pebble tools, denticulates, burins, retouched flakes, and double-edged flakes, all made from local quartz and quartzite. There were also painted fragments of rock spalled or broken from the cave walls, which suggests that the tradition of rock painting well known in this part of Brazil may have existed during the earliest occupational period (Guidon and Delibrias 1986, pp. 769–771).

Charcoal from the lowest hearth in the deposit yielded carbon 14 dates of 31,700±830 years and 32,160±1,000 years. In addition, carbon 14 dates were obtained at a series of levels running throughout the entire deposit. These dates formed the following consistent series in years b.p.: 6,160, 7,750, 7,640, 8,050, 8,450, 11,000, 17,000, 21,400, 23,500, 25,000, 25,000, 25,200, 26,300, 26,400, 27,000, 29,860, 31,700, and 32,160 (Guidon and Delibrias 1986).

This excavation is of particular interest because it involved a controlled study of stratified cave deposits yielding hearths, artifacts, and a series of radiocarbon dates. These are some of the criteria often insisted upon by defenders of orthodox archeological theories. However, one can always point to flaws in unwanted evidence, and thereby adopt a double standard.

Of course, a small but increasing number of archeologists are now accepting that humans may have been living in South America as long as 30,000 years ago. It might therefore be argued that the resistance to new findings exhibited by successive schools of archeologists is simply a healthy and unavoidable part of the scientific process. By applying the braking action of skepticism, science can make slow but steady progress, while avoiding wild, speculative excesses.

One answer to this is that by sticking to conservative viewpoints in anthropology one certainly does not avoid extreme speculation. The theory that Clovis hunters marched from northern Canada to the Tierra del Fuego in a few centuries is certainly speculative. And the sweeping denial of certain possibilities—such as the existence of humans in America at a certain date—can be just as much a speculative excess as their uncritical affirmation. In addition, it may happen that evidence suppressed as a result of such policies of denial is permanently lost, and important advancements in understanding will be delayed until similar evidence manages to surmount the barriers to acceptance in the future.

An alternative approach would be to recognize that in fields such as archeology, most empirical evidence is of a doubtful nature, whether it corroborates our views or contradicts them. Therefore, it would be best (though difficult in practice) to maintain all relevant evidence in a readily accessible form, without giving absolute credence to any current positive or negative interpretations. If this cannot be done, one should at least recognize that one may be aware of only a fraction of the evidence that has already been seriously studied—what to speak of the evidence that may be uncovered in the future.

The present method of rendering final judgement on controversial evidence by how well it fits with currently established theories does not seem to be scientifically healthy, and it can be argued that it may do irremediable damage not only to the progress of scientific knowledge, but also to the reputations of persons who happen to find controversial evidence. This is especially true when politics and intrigue enter into the scientific process. Such considerations appear to have played a major role in the negative treatment of evidence suggesting that human beings were living in the New World long before both the 12,000-year limit still favored by a majority of paleoanthropologists and the 30,000-year limit currently accepted by a growing minority. We shall now discuss a few recent examples of this evidence, in the form of anomalously old crude stone tool industries, with the aim of shedding more light on the social processes of acceptance and rejection of evidence in the scientific world.

3.8.2 Texas Street, San Diego (Early Late Pleistocene to Late Middle Pleistocene)

A good example of a controversial American early stone tool industry reminiscent of the European eoliths is the one discovered by George Carter (1957) in the 1950s at the Texas Street excavation in San Diego. At this site, Carter (1957) claimed to have found hearths and crude stone tools at levels corresponding to the last interglacial period, some 80,000–90,000 years ago. Critics scoffed at these claims, referring to Carter’s alleged tools as products of nature, or “cartifacts”, and Carter was later publicly defamed in a Harvard course on “Fantastic Archeology” (Williams 1986, p. 41). However, Carter gave clear criteria for distinguishing between his tools and naturally broken rocks, and lithic experts such as John Witthoft (1955) have endorsed his claims.

In 1973, Carter conducted more extensive excavations at Texas Street and invited numerous archeologists to come and view the site firsthand. Almost none responded. Carter (1980, p. 63) stated: “San Diego State University adamantly refused to look at work in its own backyard.”

Carter found evidence for a human presence during the last interglacial period at several other sites in San Diego and elsewhere in the southwestern United States. But he found it difficult to get his findings published in standard scientific journals. In 1960, an editor of Science, the journal of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, asked Carter to submit an article about early humans in America. Carter did so, but the article was rejected. The editor wrote to Carter on February 1, 1960: “It was good of you to prepare a paper ‘On the Antiquity of Man in America’ for possible publication in our Current Problems in Research series in Science. In view of the fact that I invited you to prepare the paper for us, I especially regret to say that your paper, although it is interesting and deals with an important subject, is too controversial for publication in a general scientific magazine such as ours. I sought the advice of two highly competent advisers and they were in essential agreement with each other in their recommendations. They both thought that the paper was unsuitable for Science” (T. E. Lee 1977, p. 3).

Carter replied in a letter to the editor, dated February 2, 1960: “I must assume now that you had no idea of the intensity of feeling that reigns in the field. It is nearly hopeless to try to convey some idea of the status of the field of Early Man in America at the moment. But just for fun: I have a correspondent whose name I cannot use, for though he thinks that I am right, he could lose his job for saying so. I have another anonymous correspondent who as a graduate student found evidence that would tend to prove me right. He and his fellow student buried the evidence. They were certain that to bring it in would cost them their chance for their Ph.D’s. At a meeting, a young professional approached me to say, ‘I hope you really pour it on them. I would say it if I dared, but it would cost me my job.’ At another meeting, a young man sidled up to say, ‘In dig x they found core tools like yours at the bottom but just didn’t publish them’” ( T. E. Lee 1977, p. 4).

The inhibiting effect of negative propaganda on the evaluation of Carter’s discoveries is suggested in the following statement by archeologist Brian Reeves: “Were actual artifacts uncovered at Texas Street, and is the site really Last Interglacial in age? . . . Because of the weight of critical ‘evidence’ presented by established archaeologists, the senior author [Reeves], like most other archaeologists, accepted the position of the skeptics uncritically, dismissing the sites and the objects as natural phenomena” (Reeves et al. 1986, p. 66).

But when he took the trouble to look at the evidence himself, Reeves changed his mind. He wrote: “While visiting San Diego in 1976 the senior author had the opportunity to view some of George Carter’s . . . collections from Texas Street . . . in Mission Valley. Among the fractured quartzite cobbles were many objects that appeared to Reeves and R. S. MacNeish to be culturally produced, modified, and utilized quartzite cobble artifacts” (Reeves et al. 1986, p. 66). Ten years later Reeves conducted several onsite investigations near Texas Street.

Many of the specimens he studied, although made from quartzite rather than flint, appear to be Eolithic: “In summary, the Mission Ridge quartzite cobble complex includes naturally produced sharp-pointed and edged bipolar cores, blocky quartzite pieces and irregular-shaped sharp-edged flakes. These fragments were not only utilized by man, but also modified into more formed flakes and tools (the horseshoe chopper, for example) as well as culturally manufactured, unifacially retouched and utilized flakes” (Reeves et al. 1986, p. 78).

Reeves concluded: “The bulk of the fractured quartzites recovered from Mission Ridge were, in our opinion, naturally broken but collected elsewhere and brought to the site by man for use primarily as ready-made expediency tools” (Reeves et al. 1986, p. 78). In light of Reeves’s change of heart about Carter’s tools, one wonders what would result from an openminded review of the European eoliths.

Reeves then made the following commentary on the unfair treatment professional scientists gave to the San Diego implements: “The fractured quartzite complex, as first claimed by Carter, is part of a Late to Middle Pleistocene quartzite cobble core/unifacial flake tradition of Pacific coastal-adapted people. . . . Had Carter’s claims been taken seriously enough by professional archaeologists to undertake detailed field studies instead of simply dismissing them, we would have had a major body of data on Late Pleistocene North American coastal settlement” (Reeves et al. 1986, pp. 78–79). Reeves believed some of Carter’s implements to be 120,000 years old.

Over several decades, many ancient human occupation sites were investigated around San Diego, and Carter (1957, pp. 370–371) constructed a tentative history of stone tool usage in this region over the last 90,000 years. After the Texas Street phase, characterized by crude stone tools, came the following developments: (1) The period of 55,000 to 80,000 years ago, represented by “strongly weathered manos and metates from basal positions in alluvium over interglacial beaches at Scripps campus and about La Jolla and Point Loma.” There were also biface and plano-convex cobble core tools, and used flakes.

Manos and metates are grinding tools. Plano-convex tools are flat on one side and rounded, or convex, on the other. (2) The period of 30,000 to 55,000 years ago, with large, crude, percussively flaked, ovate knives, tending to be unifacial. (3) The period of 15,000 years to 30,000 ago with small, slender, leaf-shaped, double-convex knives, broad-stemmed knives, and abundant fine plano-convex tools. (4) Then came the recent San Dieguito and Yuman cultures.

According to standard views, practically all of the variegated lithic forms in this list would have to be either (1) incorrectly dated, or (2) products of human imagination applied to naturally broken stone. The manos and metates are especially interesting, since these grinding tools are generally associated with Neolithic, or very late Stone Age, culture. The oldest accepted examples, from Egypt, are thought to be only 17,000 years old (Gowlett 1984, p. 152).

3.8.3 Louis Leakey and the Calico Site in California (Middle Pleistocene)

As we have several times seen in previous chapters (and will see again in later chapters), some famous scientists have occasionally nurtured heretical ideas, despite the personal risks involved in opposing prevailing academic views. One example is Louis Leakey, world renowned for his discoveries in Africa. He began to have radical ideas about the antiquity of humans in America at a time when the entry date for the Siberian hunters was thought to be no greater than some 5,000 years ago. Eventually, Leakey journeyed to America and discovered a crude stone tool industry, of Eolithic type, at Calico, in southern California. The site was dated at over 200,000 years.

Leakey recalled: “Back in 1929–1930 when I was teaching students at the University of Cambridge, I began to look into the question of the antiquity of man in the Americas. Although there was no concrete evidence to indicate a remote age, I was so impressed by the circumstantial evidence that I began to tell my students that man must have been in the New World at least 15,000 years. I shall never forget when Ales Hrdlicka, that great man from the Smithsonian Institution, happened to be at Cambridge, and he was told by my professor (I was only a student supervisor) that Dr. Leakey was telling students that man must have been in America 15,000 or more years ago. He burst into my rooms—he didn’t even wait to shake hands—and said, ‘Leakey, what’s this I hear? Are you preaching heresy?”’ Leakey said, “No, Sir!” Hrdlicka replied, “You are! You are telling students that man was in America 15,000 years ago. What evidence have you?” Leakey replied, “No positive evidence. Purely circumstantial evidence. But with man from Alaska to Cape Horn, with many different languages and at least two civilizations, it is not possible that he was present only the few thousands of years that you at present allow” (L. Leakey 1979, p. 91).

Leakey continued to harbor unorthodox views on this matter, and in 1964 he made an effort to collect some definite evidence by initiating an excavation at a site known as Calico in the Mojave Desert of California. This site is situated near the shore of now-vanished Pleistocene Lake Manix, on the eroded remains of an alluvial fan of sediments washed down from the nearby Calico mountains. Over a period of eighteen years of excavation, some 11,400 artifacts were recovered from a number of levels. The oldest artifact-bearing level has been dated by the uranium series method to about 200,000 years b.p. (Budinger 1983).

There is general agreement among geologists about the great age of the Calico site, and ages as great as 500,000 years have been seriously proposed. However, as happened with Texas Street, mainstream archeologists have tended to reject the artifacts discovered at Calico as products of nature, and the Calico site tends to be passed over in silence in popular accounts of archeology. Indeed, it seemed that the iconoclastic Leakey, famous for so many revolutionary archeological discoveries, had committed a grave error in judgement in his foray into the New World. Leakey’s biographer Sonia Cole (1975, p. 351) said, “For many colleagues who felt admiration and affection for Louis and his family, the Calico years were an embarrassment and a sadness.”

Yet the artifacts of Calico also have their defenders, who give elaborate arguments showing that they were human artifacts, not “geofacts” resulting from natural processes. These archeologists include Phillip Tobias, the well-known associate of Raymond Dart, discoverer of Australopithecus. Tobias (1979, p. 97) declared: “when Dr. Leakey first showed me a small collection of pieces from Calico . . . I was at once convinced that some, though not all, of the small samples showed unequivocal signs of human authorship.” Tobias went on to point out that the presence of naturally broken stones is to be expected, and does not detract from the validity of artifacts that are mixed in with them.

The arguments presented are reminiscent of the controversy over eoliths in Europe. Detractors such as archeologist C. Vance Haynes (1973, pp. 305–310) claimed that the natural banging together of stones in streams and shifting earth can simulate all the alleged Calico stone tools. On the other hand, defenders pointed out that these alleged natural processes did not occur at sites such as Calico, and could not have produced the observed, systematic patterns of lithic flaking even if they did occur (L. Patterson et al. 1987, pp. 91–105).

Geological evidence indicates that the Calico implements lie in an ancient mud flow context. In this regard, Ruth D. Simpson stated: “Natural forces in a mud flow would be expected to give mainly bidirectional random damage to flake edges. It would be difficult for nature to produce many specimens resembling man-made unifacial tools, with completely unidirectional edge retouch done in a uniform, directed manner. The Calico site has yielded many completely unifacial stone tools with uniform edge retouch. These include end scrapers, side scrapers, and gravers. Some gravers have bifacial retouch on points, which can be expected in even unifacial flake tool industries” (Simpson et al. 1986, p. 96). Flake tools with unifacial, unidirectional chipping, like those found at Calico, are typical of the European eoliths. Examples are also found among the Oldowan industries of East Africa. Among the best tools that turned up at Calico was an excellent beaked graver (Figure 3.30). Bola stones have also been reported (Minshall 1989, p. 110).

At an international archeological conference held in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1981, three of the defenders of Calico listed 17 criteria for human flaking which, according to them, were met by the artifacts discovered at the Calico site. Some of these criteria were (1) the presence of ripple lines and force bulbs with bulb scars, (2) striking platform angles under 90 degrees, (3) crushing of striking platforms, (4) no remaining cortex on either striking platforms or dorsal surfaces, (5) prismatic flakes and blades, (6) unifacial edge retouch, (7) flaking on certain edges and not others, (8) well-defined bifacial objects, and (9) specific workshop areas with evidence of stone working (Simpson et al. 1981).

Figure 3.30. Abeaked graver—a stone tool from Calico in southern California, dated at about 200,000 years (Bryan 1979, p. 77).

Herbert L. Minshall stated that in 1985 several of the best small Calico implements were displayed at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Denver, Colorado. Minshall wrote (1989, p. 111): “The tools were finally accepted as manmade, but now the objection was that they could not possibly have so great an age, even though 200,000 years was modest compared to many estimates for the age of the fan sediments. . . . One highly respected archaeologist actually suggested that the tools he was shown must have somehow fallen into the excavation from the surface.”

In 1986, George Carter and Fred Budinger discovered an additional site at Calico. Minshall (1989, p. 111) stated that Carter and Budinger found “small stone specimens apparently worked by man and more than 20 feet below the dated volcanic ash stratum at the foot of the Calico/Mule Canyon fan” near the main Calico site. Fossils of typical Pleistocene mammals such as the sabertooth tiger, camel, horse, and mammoth were also found beneath the ash, which yielded a potassium-argon date of 185,000 years.

In general, however, the Calico discoveries have met with silence, ridicule, and opposition in the ranks of mainstream paleoanthropology. Ruth Simpson nevertheless stated: “The data base for very early man in the New World is growing rapidly, and can no longer simply be ignored, because it does not fit current models of prehistory in the New World. With the present data gaps that exist in our knowledge of the prehistory of man in the New World, any current proposed

‘final’ solutions to the early origins, migrations, and cultures of Pleistocene man in the New World are premature. At the present state of knowledge in early man research, there is a need for flexibility in thinking to assure unbiased peer reviews” (Simpson et al. 1986, p. 104). The same might also be said of the larger question of human evolution.

3.8.4 Toca da Esperança, Brazil (Middle Pleistocene)

Support for the authenticity of the Calico tools has come from a find in Brazil. In 1982, Maria Beltrao found a series of caves with wall paintings in the state of Bahia. In 1985, a trench was cut in the Toca da Esperança (Cave of Hope), and excavations in 1986 and 1987 “yielded stone tools associated with Quaternary fauna in a defined stratigraphic context” (de Lumley et al. 1988, p. 241).

There were four layers in the cave. The first layer was a hard carbonate crust, 20 to 60 centimeters (about 8 to 24 inches) thick. Beneath this were 3 layers of sand and sandy clay. In the lowest, Layer 4, stone implements were discovered along with abundant mammalian fossils. De Lumley et al. (1988, p. 241) commented: “Three bones . . . were dated by the uranium-thorium method using alpha and gamma-ray spectrometries, [giving] ages between 204,000 and 295,000 years.” These tests were performed at three different laboratories— Gif-sur-Yvette, France; the University of California at Los Angeles; and the laboratory of the U.S. Geological Survey at Menlo Park, California (de Lumley et al. 1988, p. 243).

The tools were fashioned from quartz pebbles and were somewhat crude, like those from Olduvai Gorge. The implements included “a chopper with cuttingedge trimmed by three adjacent removals” (de Lumley et al. 1988, p. 243). The report pointed out that the nearest source of quartz pebbles is about 10 kilometers from the cave.

De Lumley et al. (1988, p. 242) stated: “the evidence seems to indicate that Early Man entered into the American continent much before previously thought.” They went on to say: “In light of the discoveries at the Toca da Esperança, it is much easier to interpret the lithic industry of the Calico site, in the Mojave Desert, near Yermo, San Bernardino County, California, which is dated at between 150,000 and 200,000 years” (de Lumley et al. 1988, p. 245).

According to de Lumley and his associates, humans and protohumans entered the Americas from northern Asia several times during the Pleistocene. The early migrants, who manufactured the tools in the Brazilian cave, were Homo erectus (de Lumley et al. 1988, p. 242). While this view is in harmony with the consensus on human evolution, there is no reason why the tools in the Toca da Esperança could not have been made by anatomically modern humans. As we have several times mentioned, such tools are still being manufactured by humans in various parts of the world.

Toca da Esperança provides a clear example of how the scientific community hesitates to change deeply held convictions. The discovery was made by a team headed by a famous French scientist, respected in his field. The site was systematically excavated according to strict principles. The implements were discovered in situ, in a defined stratigraphic context. They were clearly intentionally manufactured. They were found in conjunction with a typical Middle Pleistocene fauna, with many extinct species. The researchers admitted that it was not possible to assign a direct age to the cave on the basis of the biostratigraphic evidence (the Middle Pleistocene goes from about 100,000 to 1,000,000 years ago), but multiple uranium series tests gave ages of between 204,000 and 295,000 years. Of course, the uranium series dates could be wrong. But if these are wrong, then every uranium series date, including the ones used to buttress more acceptable finds, could also be wrong. Altogether, it is hard to see what more one could desire in the way of empirical evidence that would confirm the presence of intelligent toolmaking beings in the Americas in the Middle Pleistocene. Yet the consensus that humans entered the Americas fairly recently remains intact.

3.8.5 Alabama Pebble Tools

The crude stone tools of Bed I in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, are also paralleled, interestingly enough, by pebble tools from Alabama, U.S.A. that are almost identical in form (Figure 3.31, p. 208). These stone tools, reported by archeologist Daniel Josselyn (1966), can be found in great numbers in certain surface sites, where they are mixed in with artifacts from a variety of native American cultures.

Pebble tools are usually associated with very primitive levels of culture not thought to have ever existed in America. Thus, when Josselyn tried to acquaint other American archeologists with his finds, he did not receive an encouraging reaction. “Rather,” as he put it, “to my horror, I learned that Pavlov could have studied ‘conditioned reflexes’ about as well in archaeologists as in dogs. Please, please, believe that I say this with no critical rancor” (Josselyn 1966, p. 25). It was apparently “known” by some that no pebble tools were made in the New World.

Figure 3.31. Pebble chopper, from Alabama, U.S.A., undated (Josselyn 1966). Such tools usually imply very primitive cultures not thought to have existed in America.

Josselyn said that since theAlabama tools were not from stratified sites, they could not be dated, and he had no suggestion about their age. They could thus be quite recent, posing no threat to dominant views about the arrival of humans in the Americas. The problem here seems to be a fixation on the questionable idea that pebble tools must have been made by protohumans such as Homo habilis or Homo erectus. But human beings have used pebble tools in Asia and Africa in historic times.

3.8.6 Monte Verde, Chile (Late Pleistocene)

Another archeological site that has bearing on the evaluation of crude stone tools is the Monte Verde site in south central Chile. According to a report in Mammoth Trumpet (1984), this site was first surveyed by archeologist Tom Dillehay in 1976. Although the date of 12,500 to 13,500 years b.p. for the site is not highly anomalous, the archeological finds uncovered there challenge the standard Clovis hunter theory. The culture of the Monte Verde people was completely distinct from that of the Clovis hunters. Although these people made some bifacial implements, their lithic technology was based mainly on minimally modified pebble tools. Indeed, to a large extent, they obtained stone tools by selecting naturally occurring split pebbles. Some of these show signs of nothing more than usage; others show signs of deliberate retouching of a working edge. This is strongly reminiscent of the descriptions of the European eoliths.

In this case, the vexing question of artifacts versus geofacts was resolved by a fortunate circumstance: the site is located in a boggy area in which perishable plant and animal matter has been almost indefinitely preserved. Thus two pebble tools were found hafted to wooden handles. Twelve “architectural foundations” were found, made of cut wooden planks and small tree trunks staked in place. There were large communal hearths, as well as small charcoal ovens lined with clay. Some of the stored clay bore the footprint of a child 8 to 10 years old. Three crude wooden mortars were also found, held in place by wooden stakes. Grinding stones (metates) were uncovered, along with the remains of wild potatoes, medicinal plants, and sea coast plants with a high salt content. All in all, the Monte Verde site sheds an interesting light on the kind of creatures who might have made use of “crude pebble tools” during the Pliocene and Miocene in Europe or at the Plio-Pleistocene boundary in Africa. In this case, the culture was well equipped with domestic amenities made from perishable materials. Far from being subhuman, the cultural level was what we might expect of anatomically modern humans in a simple village setting even today.

By an accident of preservation, we thus see at Monte Verde artifacts representing an advanced culture accompanying the crudest kinds of stone tools. At sites millions of years older, we see only the stone tools, although perishable artifacts of the kind found at Monte Verde may have once accompanied them.

Finally, we note that Tom Dillehay found in the deepest stratum at Monte Verde a split basalt pebble, some wood fragments, two modified stones, and some charcoal dated at about 33,000 years b.p. (Bray 1986, p. 726).

3.8.7 Early Humans in America and the Eolith Question

The arguments about American sites tens and hundreds of thousands of years old are similar to those that took place among European scientists when the first evidence for prehistoric humans was coming to light. This was noted by anthropologist Alan Lyle Bryan, who wrote (1986, p. 5): “The present controversy over Early Man in America is analogous to that in Europe more than a century ago because the intellectual climate has been dominated for over 50 years by a particular paradigm which has seemed to fit most of the evidence but which fails to explain an increasing body of data. Rather than considering a new paradigm which might make the evidence sensible, skeptics have demanded that all evidence for ‘pre-Clovis’ be judged by more rigid standards of evidence and argument than are applied to later sites. . . . Arbitrary application of such rigid criteria to later sites, including Clovis sites, would relegate nearly all archaeological evidence to the ‘not proven’ category.” It should, however, be noted that the European controversy of the nineteenth century, the full dimensions of which Bryan was probably unaware, is, like the debate on the antiquity of humans in the Americas, still very much an open question. The seriousness with which a modern paleoanthropologist might consider reports of stone tools apparently made by humans in the European Pliocene and earlier is likely to vary in inverse proportion to his commitment to the now-accepted views on human evolution.

Eolithic tools have been found not only in America and Europe but in Australia (R. A. Gould et al. 1971). They have been described as featuring “the casual use of available materials; the lack of emphasis on technological sophistication; the regular discarding of tools after a specific job had been completed; and an attitude which de-emphasizes symmetry, refinement, and systematic continuity in tool types, but instead focuses on the most convenient means of accomplishing the job at hand” (Alsoszatai-Petheo 1986, p. 22).

The human manufacture of the Australian specimens has been widely recognized in the scientific community. So why are not similar tools found in America granted equal recognition? Alan Lyle Bryan (1986, pp. 7–8) stated: “some definitely shaped tool (preferably something ‘diagnostic’) must be present in order to have acceptable ‘proof’ for the presence of Early Man. Anything less is now being labelled a ‘myth,’ and believers of myths cannot be scientific archaeologists. But if the Australian archaeologists had adhered to such strict criteria they would not have searched for and thereby recovered evidence for Pleistocene man on that continent. . . . It was realized that the only ‘diagnostic’ artifact categories may be simple flakes and cores. It was realized that simple retouched flakes are adequate to demonstrate the presence of early man, if they are recovered from datable stratigraphic contexts. . . . It is illogical to require the presence of diagnostic shaped tools in America and not to require their presence in Australia in order to prove that that continent was populated at least 40,000 years ago.” But if simple retouched flakes are adequate to prove the existence of humans 40,000 years ago in Australia, and 200,000 years ago in America, why are they not adequate to prove the existence of toolmaking hominids 2 million years ago in England and even earlier elsewhere?

Obviously, the great mass of evidence for a human presence in the Pliocene and earlier, as presented in this book, does not fit within the narrow limits of current ideas on human evolution. Many will therefore hesitate to even consider such evidence. This being the case, it can be said that evolutionary preconceptions impose unreasonable constraints on what evidence may be introduced into discussions of human origins and antiquity. Evidence is excluded for no other reason than that it violates evolutionary expectations. If one were, however, to give even-handed treatment to all of the available evidence, then it would become impossible to coherently set forth any temporally sequential and physiologically progressive path of hominid development. Only a ruthlessly selective editing of the totality of paleoanthropological evidence allows an evolutionary picture of human origins to be sustained.

3.9 A Recent Eolithic Discovery from India (Miocene)

We shall conclude our discussion of very crude stone tools, from as far back as the Eocene, with a recent example that shows the relevance of the issues raised in this chapter to modern paleoanthropological research.

K. N. Prasad (1982, p. 101) of the Geological Survey of India wrote in an abstract of his report: “A crude unifacial hand-axe pebble tool recovered from the late Mio-Pliocene (9–10 m.y. b.p.) at Haritalyangar, Himachal Pradesh, India is described. This crude flaked tool is assigned to Ramapithecus. The occurrence of this pebble tool in such ancient sediments indicates that early hominids such as Ramapithecus fashioned tools, were bipedal with erect posture, and probably utilized the implements for hunting.” Prasad (1982, p. 102) added: “The implement was recovered in situ, during remeasuring of the geological succession to assess the thickness of the beds. Care was taken to confirm the exact provenance of the material, in order to rule out any possibility of its derivation from younger horizons.” He also pointed out that Ramapithecus jaw fragments and teeth were found in the same horizon, the Nagri formation of the Middle Siwaliks.

Describing the tool itself, Prasad (1982, p. 102) stated: “The quartz artefact, heart-shaped (90 mm × 70 mm) [3.6 inches × 2.8 inches] was obviously fabricated from a rolled pebble, the dorsal side of which shows signs of rough flaking. . . . On the ventral side much of the marginal cortex is present at the distal end. Crude flaking has been attempted for fashioning a cutting edge. Marginal flaking at the lateral edge on the ventral side is visible.” Prasad reminded his readers that another Indian scientist had recovered stone tools from the lower part of the Pinjor formation, corresponding to the Villafranchian stage of the European Late Pliocene. He then stated: “It is not improbable that fashioning tools commenced even as early as the later Miocene and evolved in a time-stratigraphic period embracing the Astian-Villafranchian” (Prasad 1982, p. 103). We agree, but the real question the identity of the toolmaker. As we shall see, Ramapithecus has not remained a viable candidate.

Ramapithecus first came to the attention of scientists in the 1930s. This creature, initially regarded as a fossil ape, was named after Rama, an incarnation of God described in the Vedas. In 1964 Ramapithecus achieved worldwide fame when Elwyn Simons and David Pilbeam reconstructed an upper jaw from two fragments, giving it a characteristically human parabolic shape. Simons and Pilbeam pronounced Ramapithecus to be a hominid, an erect, bipedal primate. In 1964, Elwyn Simons wrote in Anthropology: “Ramapithecus punjabicus is almost certainly man’s forerunner of 15 million years ago. This determination increases tenfold the approximate time period during which human origins can now be traced with some confidence” (Fix 1984, p. 20). This was a bit of an overstatement, because between Australopithecus and Ramapithecus there was, and still is, a gap of several million years in the hominid fossil record.

In any case, Ramapithecus quickly received acclaim, in textbooks and journal articles, as the earliest human ancestor. As Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin wrote in 1977: “Ramapithecus . . . as far as one can say at the moment . . . is the first representative of the human family—the hominids” (Fix 1984, p. 20).

Others, however, maintained a more cautious attitude. In 1972, Maitland A. Edey wrote in The Missing Link: “On grounds of pure logic, it is tempting to regard Ramapithecus as a sort of proto-Australopithecine; after all, the Australopithecines had to start somewhere. But, however tempting such an idea may be, it is premature. We have no knowledge whatsoever of the nature of the rest of Ramapithecus’s body. We do not know what its skull was shaped like or how large its brain was. We know nothing about its hand or foot. We do not know if it stood upright” (Fix 1984, p. 21). Herbert Wendt also expressed some doubts in Ape to Adam: “Whether Ramapithecus, which some experts think does not really belong to the race of hominids in the narrow sense of the term, was already a tool-maker we do not know” (Fix 1984, p. 21).

In 1979, information confirming the doubtfulness of Ramapithecus appeared in the journal Natural History. A. L. Zihlman and J. M. Lowenstein stated that a complete lower jaw of Ramapithecus, the first ever found, was V-shaped, unlike either the human jaw, which has a parabolic shape, or the ape jaw, which has parallel sides (Fix 1984, p. 21). In response, Pilbeam modified his position on Ramapithecus, placing it in a separate category related neither to apes nor humans. But three years later, Ramapithecus’s status changed again. William R. Fix (1984, pp. 21–22) wrote: “the February 6, 1982 issue of Science News added a new twist to the Ramapithecus story. Compiling information from an article in Nature (January 21, 1982) and a telephone interview with Pilbeam, Science News now has Ramapithecus as ‘part of the orangutan lineage.’” This newly defined Ramapithecus was definitely not a maker of stone tools.

As late as 1981, however, A. R. Sankhyan of the Anthropological Survey of India was writing (1981, pp. 358–359): “The Sivalik Group of rocks exposed in Haritalyangar area of district Bilaspur is famous for the well known Mio-Pliocene Hominoidea—Dryopithecus, Gigantopithecus, and Ramapithecus, the last of which is considered as the earliest hominoid ancestor of man and also believed to be an ad hoc toolmaker.”

But a short time later this view was history. R. N. Vasishat, an anthropologist at Punjab University, wrote (1985, p. xiv): “Until the year 1982, scientists all over the world had unanimously been considering the genus Ramapithecus to be the earliest known hominid in the world and [it] was also presumed to be ancestral to Australopithecus and Homo. When this species was taken out of the family Hominidae, the Siwaliks became devoid of any evidence for the antecedents of Early Man. But the author is very sure, the void thus created is very temporary and there is no reason for us to believe that the Siwaliks will never yield fossil evidence or physical evidence of Early Man in the future.”

It is interesting to note that with Ramapithecus demoted, the Siwaliks became “devoid of any evidence” for Early Man. But what about the above-mentioned stone tools reported by Prasad and Verma? Were these not still evidence? Here is yet another example of the curious manner in which scientists treat anomalous discoveries. Prasad’s discovery of a Miocene implement is particularly significant in that it shows that evidence of the type reported by nineteenth-century scientists is still turning up and still being subjected to the same unfair treatment.

Crude Paleolithic Stone Tools

In the previous chapter, we considered anomalous stone tools of the crudest type, the eoliths. We shall now turn our attention to other stone tools, which, although also crude when compared with the sophisticated implements of the conventional Late Stone Age, represent an advance over the eoliths. These we have chosen to designate as crude paleoliths.

For some researchers, the terms eolith and paleolith represent a chronological succession, but we use these terms principally to make a distinction in the morphology of tool types. Eoliths, it may be recalled, are naturally broken pieces of stone that are used as tools with little or no further modification. A working edge might be retouched and show signs of wear. Paleoliths, however, are often deliberately flaked from stone cores and then more extensively modified.

As we have previously mentioned, arriving at clear-cut distinctions between eoliths and crude paleoliths is not always possible. Furthermore, a particular group of discoveries often includes implements of various levels of sophistication. In making decisions about what industries to put in this chapter, we have been guided by statements of scientists who favorably compared individual implements, and groups of implements, to recognized tools from much later periods. Anomalously old stone tool industries containing a good many implements comparable to the cruder kinds of classical Paleolithic implements have been selected for inclusion.

4.1 The Finds of Carlos Ribeiro in Portugal ( Miocene)

We first turn our attention to Carlos Ribeiro’s discoveries in the Miocene of Portugal. The first hint of Ribeiro’s work came to our attention quite accidentally. While going through the writings of the nineteenth-century American geologist J. D. Whitney, who reported evidence for Tertiary human beings in California, we encountered a sentence or two about Ribeiro having discovered flint implements in Miocene formations near Lisbon. We found more brief mentions in the works of S. Laing, a popular English science writer of the late nineteenth century. Curious, we searched libraries, but turned up no works under Ribeiro’s name and found ourselves at a dead end. Sometime later, Ribeiro’s name turned up again, this time in the 1957 English edition of Fossil Men by Boule and Vallois, who rather curtly dismissed the work of the nineteenth-century Portuguese geologist. We were, however, led by Boule and Vallois to the 1883 edition of Le Préhistorique, by de Mortillet, who gave a favorable report of Ribeiro’s discoveries, in French. By tracing out the references mentioned in de Mortillet’s footnotes, we gradually uncovered a wealth of remarkably convincing original reports in French journals of archeology and anthropology from the latter part of the nineteenth century. The search for this buried evidence was very illuminating, demonstrating how the scientific establishment treats reports of facts that no longer conform to accepted views. Keep in mind that for most current students of paleoanthropology, Ribeiro and his discoveries simply do not exist. You have to go back to textbooks printed over 30 years ago to find even a mention of him. Did Ribeiro’s work really deserve to be buried and forgotten? We shall present the facts and allow readers to form their own conclusions.

4.1.1 A Summary History of Ribeiro’s Discoveries

Carlos Ribeiro was not an amateur. In 1857, he was named to head the Geological Survey of Portugal, and he would also be elected to the Portuguese Academy of Sciences. During the years 1860– 63, he conducted studies of stone implements found in Portugal’s Quaternary strata. Nineteenth-century geologists generally divided the geological periods into four main groups: (1) the Primary, encompassing the periods from the Precambrian through the Permian; (2) the Secondary, encompassing the periods from the Triassic through the Cretaceous; (3) the Tertiary, encompassing the periods from the Paleocene through the Pliocene; and (4) the Quaternary, encompassing the Pleistocene and Recent periods. During the course of his investigations, Ribeiro learned that flints bearing signs of human work were being found in Tertiary beds between Canergado and Alemquer, two villages in the basin of the Tagus River, about 35– 40 kilometers (22–25 miles) northeast of Lisbon.

Ribeiro immediately began his own investigations, and in many localities found “flakes of worked flint and quartzite in the interior of the beds.” Ribeiro (1873a, p. 97) said: “I was greatly surprised when I forcefully extracted, with my own hand, worked flints, from deep inside a bed of limestone which had been inclined at an angle of 30–50 degrees from the horizontal.” The geology of the region indicated the limestone bed was of Tertiary age, yet the presence of the stone implements, so obviously the work of humans, placed Ribeiro in a dilemma. The discovery of the implements “deep inside” the beds seemed to rule out the possibility that they had been artificially introduced at some later period. So if he accepted the beds as Tertiary, then humans must have existed during that time. But Ribeiro felt he must submit to the prevailing scientific dogma that human beings were not older than the Quaternary. To this very day authorities hold that humans of the modern type did not appear until the very latest part of the Pleistocene. So Ribeiro looked for and found a way to designate the limestone formation as Quaternary. He remained troubled at heart, however, for the geological facts he himself had observed were leading him to the forbidden conclusion that humans had existed in times more ancient than the Quaternary (Ribeiro 1873a, p. 97).

In 1866, on the official geological maps of Portugal, Ribeiro reluctantly assigned Quaternary ages to certain of the implement-bearing strata. Upon seeing the maps, the French geologist de Verneuil took issue with Ribeiro’s judgement, pointing out that the so-called Quaternary beds were, according to geological evidence, certainly Pliocene or Miocene.

Meanwhile, in France, the Abbé Louis Bourgeois, a reputable investigator, had reported finding stone implements in Tertiary beds, and some authorities had supported him. Thus, under the twin influences of de Verneuil’s criticism and the discoveries of Bourgeois, Ribeiro resolved his inner conflict and decided that the geological and paleontological facts could no longer be ignored. He began openly reporting that implements of human manufacture were being found in Pliocene and Miocene formations in Portugal (Ribeiro 1873a, p. 98).

From the standpoint of modern geology, Ribeiro’s assessment of the age of the formations in the Tagus River valley near Lisbon is generally correct. Modern authorities have observed seven Miocene cycles of sedimentation and one Pliocene cycle (Antunes et al. 1980, p. 136). The Late Tertiary (including the Pliocene and Miocene) is sometimes called the Neogene. In a study focusing on the Neogene formations of Europe, Ivan Chicha (1970, p. 50) said about Portugal: “The Neogene beds are known from the basin situated in the lower reach of the river Tejo [Tagus], in the environs of Lisbon. The Oligocene beds, prevalently of freshwater continental origin . . . are overlain by beds . . . which are placed in the oldest Miocene—Aquitanian.” According to Chicha, these Aquitanian beds are surmounted by limestones and claystones that ascend to the Tortonian stage of the Late Miocene. Another recent study (Antunes et al. 1980, p. 138) included a chart showing the lithostratigraphic units in the Tagus basin. Limestones, such as those in which Ribeiro found stone tools, occur in the Middle and Early Miocene.

In considering stone implements, three questions must be answered: (1) is the specimen really of human manufacture? (2) has the age of the stratum in which it was discovered been properly determined? (3) was the implement incorporated into the stratum at the time the stratum was laid down, or was the implement introduced at a later date? As far as Ribeiro was concerned, he was convinced that he had satisfactorily answered all three questions. The toollike flint objects he studied were of human manufacture, they were found in strata mostly of Miocene age, and many appeared to be in primary position, although some of his specimens were found on the surface.

In 1871, Ribeiro presented to the members of the Portuguese Academy of Science at Lisbon a collection of flint and quartzite implements, including those gathered from the Tertiary formations of the Tagus valley. In 1872, at the International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology meeting in Brussels, Ribeiro gave a similar report on his discoveries and displayed more specimens, mostly pointed flakes. At that time, Bourgeois said that none appeared to be of human manufacture. Upon a new examination of Ribeiro’s specimens, Bourgeois found one flint that he thought displayed signs of human work, but unfortunately it had not been found in situ. He therefore suspended judgement (de Mortillet 1883, p. 95). The English authority, A.W. Franks, who served as Conservator of National Antiquities and Ethnography at the British Museum, gave a more positive opinion. An expert in cultural remains, including tools, Franks stated that some of the specimens did appear to be the product of intentional work, but he reserved judgement on the age of the strata in which they had been found (Ribeiro 1873a, p. 99).

Ribeiro himself (1873b, p. 100) then addressed the Congress on the question of “the exact geological situation of the beds in which he had found worked flint flakes, the authenticity of which has been recognized by Mr. Franks and other members of the Congress.” Ribeiro reported that one of the flints had been found in the reddish-yellow Pliocene sandstone on the left bank of the Tagus, to the south of Lisbon. He noted that these beds cover Miocene marine deposits (Ribeiro 1873b, p. 101). Modern authorities (Antunes et al. 1980, pp. 136–138) still show this basic sequence—Miocene marine deposits surmounted by Pliocene sandstone formations—in the Lisbon region.

“Concerning the other flints which Mr. Franks has declared bear evident traces of human workmanship,” said Ribeiro (1873b, p. 102), “they were found in Miocene strata.” He explained that on the way north from Lisbon to Caldas da Rainha, between the towns of Otta and Cercal, one comes to the steep hill of Espinhaço de Cão. According to Ribeiro (1873b, p. 102), it was in the sandstone beds of this hill, which lie under marine Miocene strata, that he found “flints worked by the hand of man before they were buried in the deposits.” This would indicate the presence of human beings in Portugal at least 5 million years ago and perhaps as much as 25 million years ago. Figure 4.1 shows an implement from Espinhaço de Cão.

Ribeiro’s Miocene flints made an impressive debut at Brussels, but remained controversial. At the Paris Exposition of 1878, Ribeiro displayed 95 specimens of Tertiary flint tools in the gallery of anthropological science. De Mortillet visited Ribeiro’s exhibit and, in the course of examining the specimens carefully, found that 22 had indubitable signs of human work. This was quite an admission for de Mortillet, for, as described in Chapter 2, he habitually rejected all evidence for human work on incised and broken bones from the Tertiary.

Figure 4.1. Implement found by Carlos Ribeiro, of the Geological Survey of Portugal, in a Miocene layer at Espinhaço de Cão (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881, plate 3). The ventral surface shows: (1) a striking platform, (2) bulb of percussion, and (3) eraillure.

Gabriel de Mortillet, along with his friend and colleague Emile Cartailhac, enthusiastically brought other paleoanthropologists to see Ribeiro’s specimens, and they were all of the same opinion—a good many of the flints were definitely made by humans. Cartailhac then photographed the specimens, and de Mortillet later presented the pictures in his Musée Préhistorique (1881).

De Mortillet (1883, p. 99) wrote: “The intentional work is very well established, not only by the general shape, which can be deceptive, but much more conclusively by the presence of clearly evident striking platforms and strongly developed bulbs of percussion.” The bulbs of percussion also sometimes had eraillures, small chips removed by the force of impact. In addition to the striking platform, bulb of percussion, and eraillure, some of Ribeiro’s specimens had several long, vertical flakes removed in parallel, something not likely to occur in the course of random battering by the forces of nature.

De Mortillet’s method of analysis is comparable to that employed by modern experts in lithic technology, who, like de Mortillet, emphasize that the toollike shape of a flint does not in itself establish human work. Leland W. Patterson, a contemporary expert in distinguishing artifacts from naturefacts, believes that the bulb of percussion is the most important sign of intentional work on a flint flake. If the flake also shows the remnants of a striking platform, then one can be even more certain that one is confronted with a flake struck deliberately from a flint core and not a piece of naturally broken flint resembling a tool or weapon.

“There can be no doubt,” wrote de Mortillet (1883, p. 99) about Ribeiro’s stone implements. “The diverse specimens are formed from big flakes, almost all of them triangular and without retouch, some in flint, some in quartzite. In looking at the collection, one believes oneself to be seeing Mousterian tools, only somewhat coarser than usual.” Mousterian is the name given to the type of stone tool usually considered to have been made by the Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), who are thought to have lived in the latter part of the Pleistocene. By making the comparison with the Late Pleistocene Mousterian implements, de Mortillet was pointing out that Ribeiro’s specimens almost exactly resemble those that are universally acknowledged as being of human manufacture. Figure 4.2 shows one of Ribeiro’s Miocene tools from Portugal and for comparison an accepted stone tool from the Mousterian cultural stage of the European Late Pleistocene. They share the typical features of intentional human work on stone: the striking platform, bulb of percussion, eraillure, and parallel removal of flakes.

De Mortillet (1883, pp. 99 –100) further observed: “Many of the specimens, on the same side as the bulb of percussion, have hollows with traces and fragments of sandstone adhering to them, a fact which establishes their original position in the strata. The sandstone is inserted among strata of clays and limestones in the valley of the Tagus, together comprising a formation that attains in some places a depth of 400 meters [over 1,300 feet]. The beds have been dislocated and are in some places now resting almost in a vertical position. It is very evidently Tertiary terrain. Of the 22 worked specimens, 9 are indicated by Ribeiro to be Miocene. The others are Pliocene.”

Plate 3 in de Mortillet’s publication Musée Préhistorique (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881) featured illustrations of Ribeiro’s Miocene and Pliocene discoveries. We have selected two for reproduction. Figure 4.3 depicts both sides of a flint flake recovered from a Tertiary formation at the base of Monte Redondo. This formation is said to belong to the Tortonian stage of the Late Miocene (de Mortillet 1883, p. 102). The ventral surface of the flint flake shows “a large striking platform, bulb of percussion, and eraillure” (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881, plate 3). The dorsal surface of the flake bore proof that it was found in the Tertiary sandstones of Otta. Sandstone, just like that found at the base of Monte Redondo, adhered to the surface.

Figure 4.2. Left: Dorsal and ventral views of a stone tool recovered from a Tertiary formation in Portugal (de Mortillet 1883, p. 98). It would be over 2 million years old. Right: An accepted stone tool, less than 100,000 years old, from the Mousterian cultural stage of the European Late Pleistocene (de Mortillet 1883, p. 81). Both implements clearly display the following features of intentional human work: (1) striking platforms, (2) eraillures, (3) bulbs of percussion, and (4) parallel flake removal.

Figure 4.3. Ventral and dorsal surfaces of a flint tool found in a Late Miocene formation at Monte Redondo, Portugal (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881, plate 3).

The quartzite flake shown in Figure 4.4 was found in a Pliocene formation at Barquinha, 103 kilometers (about 64 miles) northeast of Lisbon, Portugal. The ventral surface of the flake displays a striking platform, bulb of percussion, and eraillure (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881, plate 3). While this flake was still attached to the quartzite core, another flake was struck from it, as shown by a negative bulb of percussion on the dorsal surface of the flake.

In a report published in 1879, Cartailhac 1 2 said about some of Ribeiro’sspecimens:“Onewould believe himself to be viewing a series of Mousterian stone implements, though somewhat cruder. The bulbs of percussion are 3 generally quite prominent. . . . These pieces bear the proof that they were not found on the surface.

Figure 4.4. Quartzite tool found in a Pliocene formation at Barquinha, Portugal (G. de Mortillet and A. de Mortillet 1881, plate 3). The ventral surface (left), shows (1) a striking platform, (2) bulb of percussion, and (3) eraillure.

Figure 4.5. An implement found in a Miocene formation at Carregado, Portugal (Cartailhac 1879, plate 8).

On the faces of the flakes and in the hollows are found fragments of the sandstone which had encased them” (Cartailhac 1879, p. 439). One of the pieces (Figure 4.5) was found at Carregado in a Miocene formation and was described by Cartailhac as displaying “a bulb of percussion and retouch.” Retouching, in the form of regular chipping along the edges of a flint flake, is a good indicator of intentional work.

4.1.2 An International Committee Vindicates Ribeiro