from: http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/index.htm
Hidden History of the Human Race
by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson
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In 1958, at a site near Lewisville,
Texas, stone tools and burned animal bones were found in association
with hearths. Later, as the excavation progressed, radiocarbon dates of at
least 38,000 years were announced for charcoal from the hearths. Still later, a
Clovis point was found. Herbert Alexander, who was a graduate student in
archaeology at the time, recalled how this sequence of finds was received. On a
number of occasions, stated Alexander, the opinions voiced at that time were
that the hearths were man-made, and the faunal associations valid. Once the
dates were announced, however, some opinions were changed, and, after the
Clovis point was found, the process of picking and ignoring began in
earnest.
Finding a Clovis point in a layer 38,000 years old was disturbing because
orthodox anthropologists date the first Clovis points at 12,000 years. Some
critics responded to the Lewisville find by alleging that the Clovis point had
been planted as a hoax. Others have said the radiocarbon dates were wrong.
After mentioning a number of similar cases of ignored or derided discoveries,
Alexander recalled a suggestion that in order to decide issues of early man, we
may soon require attorneys for advocacy. This may not be a bad idea in a field
of science like archaeology, where opinions determine the status of facts, and
facts resolve into networks of interpretation. Attorneys and courts may aid
archaeologists in arriving more smoothly at the consensus among scholars that
passes for the scientific truth in this field. But Alexander noted that a court
system requires a jury, and the first question asked of a prospective juror is,
"Have you made up your mind on the case?" Very few archaeologists
have not made up their minds on the date humans first entered North
America.
The idea that Clovis-type projectile points represent the earliest tools in the
New World is challenged by an excavation at the Timlin site in the Catskill
mountains of New York State. In the mid-1970s, tools closely resembling the
Upper Acheulean tools of Europe were found there. In the Old World, Acheulean
tools are routinely attributed to Homo erectus. But such attribution is
uncertain because skeletal remains are usually absent at tool sites. The
Catskill tools have been given an age of 70,000 years on the basis of glacial
geology.
Hueyatlaco, Mexico
In the 1960s, sophisticated stone tools rivaling the best work of Cro-magnon
man in Europe were unearthed by Juan Armenta Camacho and Cynthia Irwin-Williams
at Hueyatlaco, near Valsequillo, 75 miles southeast of Mexico City. Stone tools
of a somewhat cruder nature were found at the nearby site of El Horno. At both
the Hueyatlaco and El Horno sites, the stratigraphic location of the implements
does not seem to be in doubt. However, these artifacts do have a very
controversial feature: a team of geologists who worked for the U.S. Geological
Survey gave them ages of about 250,000 years.
The geologists involved said four different dating methods independently
yielded unusually great ages for the artifacts found near Valsequillo. The
dating methods used were (1) uranium series dating, (2) fission track dating,
(3) tephra hydration dating, and (4) study of mineral weathering. As might be
imagined, the date of about 250,000 years obtained for Hueyatlaco by the team
of geologists provoked a great deal of controversy. If accepted, it would have
revolutionized not only New World anthropology but the whole picture of human
origins. Human beings capable of making the sophisticated tools found at
Hueyatlaco are not thought to have come into existence until about 100,000
years ago in Africa. In attempting to get her team's conclusions published,
Virginia Steen-McIntyre experienced many social pressures and obstacles. In a
note to a colleague (July 10, 1976), she stated, "I had found out through
backfence gossip that Hal, Roald, and I are considered opportunists and
publicity seekers in some circles, because of Hueyatlaco, and I am still
smarting from the blow." The publication of a paper by Steen-McIntyre and
her colleagues on Hueyatlaco was inexplicably held up for years. The paper was
first presented at an anthropological conference in 1975 and was to appear in a
symposium volume. Four years later, Steen-McIntyre wrote to H. J. Fullbright of
the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, one of the editors of the forever
forthcoming book, "Our joint article on the Hueyatlaco site is a real
bombshell. It would place man in the New World 10x earlier than many
archaeologists would like to believe. Worse, the bifacial tools that were found
in situ are thought by most to be a sign of H. sapiens. According to present
theory, H.s. had not even evolved at that time, and certainly not in the New
World." Steen-McIntyre continued, explaining, "Archaeologists are in
a considerable uproar over Hueyatlaco. They refuse even to consider it. I've
learned from second-hand sources that I'm considered by various members of the
profession to be 1) incompetent; 2) a news monger; 3) an opportunist; 4)
dishonest; 5) a fool. Obviously, none of these opinions is helping my
professional reputation! My only hope to clear my name is to get the Hueyatlaco
article into print so that folks can judge the evidence for themselves."
Steen-McIntyre, upon receiving no answer to this and other requests for
information, withdrew the article. But her manuscript was never returned to
her. A year later, Steen-McIntyre wrote (February 8, 1980) to Steve Porter
about having her article about Hueyatlaco printed. "The ms I'd like to
submit gives the geologic evidence," she said. "It's pretty
clear-cut, and if it weren't for the fact a lot of anthropology textbooks will
have to be rewritten, I don't think we would have had any problems getting the
archaeologists to accept it. As it is, no anthro journal will touch it with a
ten-foot pole." Steve Porter wrote to Steen-McIntyre (February 25, 1980),
replying that he would consider the controversial article for publication. But
he said he could well imagine that objective reviews may be a bit difficult to
obtain from certain archaeologists. The usual procedure in scientific
publishing is for an article to be submitted to several other scientists for
anonymous peer review. It is not hard to imagine how an entrenched scientific
orthodoxy could manipulate this process to keep unwanted information out of
scientific journals. On March 30, 1981, Steen-McIntyre wrote to Estella
Leopold, "The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It
concerns the manipulation of scientific thought through the suppression of
'Enigmatic Data,' data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking.
Hueyatlaco certainly does that! Not being an anthropologist, I didn't realize
the full significance of our dates back in 1973, nor how deeply woven into our
thought the current theory of human evolution had become. Our work at
Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that
theory, period. Their reasoning is circular. H. sapiens sapiens evolved ca.
30,000-50,000 years ago in Eurasia. Therefore any H.s.s. tools 250,000 years
old found in Mexico are impossible because H.s.s. evolved ca 30,000. Such
thinking makes for self-satisfied archaeologists but lousy science!"
Eventually, Quaternary Research (1981) published an article by Virginia
Steen-McIntyre, Roald Fryxell, and Harold E. Malde. It upheld an age of 250,000
years for the Hueyatlaco site. Of course, it is always possible to raise
objections to archeological dates, and Cynthia Irwin-Williams did so in a
letter responding to Steen-McIntyre, Fryxell, and Malde. Her objections were
answered point for point in a counter-letter by Malde and Steen-McIntyre. But
Irwin-Williams did not relent. The anomalous findings at Hueyatlaco resulted in
personal abuse and professional penalties, including withholding of funds and
loss of job, facilities, and reputation for Virginia Steen- McIntyre. Her case
opens a rare window into the actual social processes of data suppression in
paleoanthropology, processes that involve a great deal of conflict and hurt. A
final note: we ourselves once tried to secure permission to reproduce
photographs of the Hueyatlaco artifacts in a publication. We were informed that
permission would be denied if we intended to mention the lunatic fringe date of
250,000 years.
Sandia Cave, New Mexico
In 1975, Virginia-Steen McIntyre learned of the existence of another site with
an impossibly early date for stone tools in North America -- Sandia Cave, New
Mexico, U.S.A., where the implements, of advanced type (Folsom points), were
discovered beneath a layer of stalagmite considered to be 250,000 years old. In
a letter to Henry P. Schwartz, the Canadian geologist who had dated the
stalagmite, Virginia Steen-McIntyre wrote (July 10, 1976), "I can't
remember if it was you or one of your colleagues I talked to at the 1975
Penrose Conference (Mammoth Lakes, California). The fellow I spoke to as we
waited in line for lunch mentioned a uranium series date on the stalagmite
layer above artifacts at Sandia Cave that was very upsetting to him; it
disagreed violently with the commonly held hypothesis for the date of entry of
man into the New World. When he mentioned a date of a quarter million years or
thereabouts, I nearly dropped my tray. Not so much in shock at the age, but
that this date agreed so well with dates we have on a controversial Early Man
site in Central Mexico. Needless to say, I'd be interested to learn more about
your date and your feelings about it!" According to Steen-McIntyre, she
did not receive an answer to this letter. After writing to the chief
archeological investigator at the Sandia site for information about the dating,
Steen-McIntyre received this reply (July 2, 1976), "I hope you don't use
this 'can of worms' to prove anything until after we have had a chance to
evaluate it." Steen-McIntyre sent us some reports and photos of the Sandia
artifacts and said in an accompanying note, "The geochemists are sure of
their date, but archaeologists have convinced them the artifacts and charcoal
lenses beneath the travertine are the result of rodent activity. But what about
the artifacts cemented in the crust?
Neolithic Tools from the California Gold Country
In 1849, gold was discovered in the gravels of ancient riverbeds in central
California, drawing hordes of rowdy adventurers. At first, solitary miners
panned for flakes and nuggets in the gravels that had found their way into the
present stream beds. But soon gold-mining companies brought more extensive
resources into play, some sinking shafts into mountainsides, following the
gravel deposits wherever they led, while others washed the auriferous
(gold-bearing) gravels from hillsides with high pressure jets of water. The
miners found hundreds of stone artifacts, and, more rarely, human fossils. The
most significant artifacts were reported to the scientific community by J. D.
Whitney, then the state geologist of California. The artifacts from surface
deposits and hydraulic mining were of doubtful age, but the artifacts from deep
mine shafts and tunnels could be more securely dated. J. D. Whitney thought the
geological evidence indicated the auriferous gravels were at least Pliocene in
age. But modern geologists think some of the gravel deposits are from the
Eocene. Many shafts were sunk at Table Mountain in Tuolumne County, going under
thick layers of a basaltic volcanic material called latite before reaching the
gold-bearing gravels. In some cases, the shafts extended horizontally for
hundreds of feet beneath the latite cap (Figure 5.10). Discoveries from the
gravels just above the bedrock could be from 33.2 to 55 million years old, but
discoveries from other gravels may be anywhere from 9 to 55 million years old.
Whitney personally examined a collection of Tuolumne Table Mountain artifacts
belonging to Dr. Perez Snell, of Sonora, California. Snell's collection
included spearheads and other implements. There is not much information about
the discoverers or original positions of the implements. There was, however,
one exception. This was, wrote Whitney, a stone muller, or some kind of utensil
which had apparently been used for grinding. Dr. Snell informed Whitney that he
took it with his own hands from a car-load of "dirt" coming out from
under Table Mountain. A human jaw, inspected by Whitney, was also present in
the collection of Dr. Snell. The jaw was given to Dr. Snell by miners, who
claimed that the jaw came from the gravels beneath the latite cap at Table
Mountain in Tuolumne County. A better-documented discovery from Tuolumne Table
Mountain was made by Mr. Albert G. Walton, one of the owners of the Valentine
claim. Walton found a stone mortar, 15 inches in diameter, in gold-bearing
gravels 180 feet below the surface and also beneath the latite cap.
Significantly, the find of the mortar occurred in a drift, a mine passageway
leading horizontally from the bottom of the main vertical shaft of the
Valentine mine. This tends to rule out the possibility that the mortar might
have fallen in from above. A piece of a fossil human skull was also recovered
from the Valentine mine. William J. Sinclair suggested that many of the drift
tunnels from other mines near the Valentine shaft were connected. So perhaps
the mortar had entered through one of these other tunnels. But Sinclair
admitted that when he visited the area in 1902 he was not even able to find the
Valentine shaft. Sinclair simply used his unsupported suggestion to dismiss
Walton's report of his discovery. Operating in this manner, one could find good
reason to dismiss any paleoanthropological discovery ever made. Another find at
Tuolumne Table Mountain was reported by James Carvin in 1871. "This is to
certify that I, the undersigned, did about the year 1858, dig out of some
mining claims known as the Stanislaus Company, situated in Table Mountain,
Tuolumne County, opposite O'Byrn's Ferry, on the Stanislaus River, a stone
hatchet... The above relic was found from sixty to seventy- five feet from the
surface in gravel, under the basalt, and about 300 feet from the mouth of the
tunnel. There were also some mortars found, at about the same time and
place." In 1870, Oliver W. Stevens submitted the following notarized
affidavit. "I, the undersigned, did about the year 1853, visit the Sonora
Tunnel, situated at and in Table Mountain, about one half a mile north and west
of Shaw's Flat, and at that time there was a car-load of auriferous gravel
coming out of said Sonora Tunnel. And I, the undersigned, did pick out of said
gravel (which came from under the basalt and out of the tunnel about two
hundred feet in, at the depth of about one hundred and twenty-five feet) a
mastodon tooth. And at the same time I found with it some relic that resembled
a large stone bead, made perhaps of alabaster. The bead, if from the gravel, is
at least 9 million years old and perhaps as much as 55 million years old."
William J. Sinclair objected that the circumstances of discovery were not clear
enough. But in the cases of many accepted discoveries, the circumstances of
discovery are similar to that of the marble bead. For example, at Border Cave
in South Africa, Homo sapiens sapiens fossils were taken from piles of rock
excavated from mines years earlier. The fossils were then assigned dates of
about 100,000 years, principally because of their association with the
excavated rock. If Sinclair's strict standards were to be applied to such
finds, they also should have to be rejected. In 1870, Llewellyn Pierce gave the
following written testimony. "I, the undersigned, have this day given to
Mr. C. D. Voy, to be preserved in his collection of ancient stone relics, a
certain stone mortar, which has evidently been made by human hands, which was
dug up by me, about the year 1862, under Table Mountain, in gravel, at a depth
of about 200 feet from the surface, under the basalt, which was over sixty feet
deep, and about 1,800 feet in from the mouth of the tunnel. Found in the claim
known as the Boston Tunnel Company. The gravels that yielded the mortar are
33-55 million years old." William J. Sinclair objected that the mortar was
made of andesite, a volcanic rock not often found in the deep gravels at Table
Mountain. But modern geologists report that in the region north of Table
Mountain there are four sites that are just as old as the prevolcanic
auriferous gravels and contain deposits of andesite. Andesite mortars might
have been a valuable trade item, and could have been transported good distances
by rafts or boats, or even by foot. According to Sinclair, Pierce found another
artifact along with the mortar, "The writer was shown a small oval tablet
of dark colored slate with a melon and leaf carved in bas-relief. This tablet
shows no signs of wear by gravel. The scratches are all recent defacements. The
carving shows very evident traces of a steel knife blade and was conceived and
executed by an artist of considerable ability." Sinclair did not say
exactly what led him to conclude the tablet had been carved with a steel blade.
Therefore, he may have been wrong about the type of implement that was used. In
any case, the slate tablet was in fact discovered, with the mortar, in
prevolanic gravels deep under the latite cap of Tuolumne Table Mountain. So
even if the tablet does display signs of carving by a steel blade, that does
not mean it is recent. One could justifiably conclude that the carving was done
by human beings of a relatively high level of cultural achievement between 33
million and 55 million years ago. Sinclair also said that the tablet showed no
signs of wear by gravel. But perhaps it was not moved very far by river
currents and therefore remained unabraded. Or perhaps the tablet could have
been dropped into a gravel deposit of a dry channel. On August 2, 1890, J. H.
Neale signed the following statement about discoveries made by him. "In
1877 Mr. J. H. Neale was superintendent of the Montezuma Tunnel Company, and
ran the Montezuma tunnel into the gravel underlying the lava of Table Mountain,
Tuolumne County. At a distance of between 1400 and 1500 feet from the mouth of
the tunnel, or of between 200 and 300 feet beyond the edge of the solid lava,
Mr. Neale saw several spear-heads, of some dark rock and nearly one foot in
length. On exploring further, he himself found a small mortar three or four
inches in diameter and of irregular shape. This was discovered within a foot or
two of the spear-heads. He then found a large well-formed pestle, now the
property of Dr. R. I. Bromley, and near by a large and very regular mortar,
also at present the property of Dr. Bromley." Neale's affidavit continued,
"All of these relics were found... close to the bed-rock, perhaps within a
foot of it. Mr. Neale declares that it is utterly impossible that these relics
can have reached the position in which they were found excepting at the time
the gravel was deposited, and before the lava cap formed. There was not the
slightest trace of any disturbance of the mass or of any natural fissure into
it by which access could have been obtained either there or in the
neighborhood. The position of the artifacts in gravel close to the bed-rock at
Tuolumne Table Mountain indicates they were 33-55 million years old." In
1898, William H. Holmes decided to interview Neale, and in 1899 published the
following summary of Neale's testimony. "One of the miners coming out to
lunch at noon brought with him to the superintendent's office a stone mortar
and a broken pestle which he said had been dug up in the deepest part of the
tunnel, some 1500 feet from the mouth of the mine. Mr. Neale advised him on
returning to work to look out for other utensils in the same place, and
agreeable to his expectations two others were secured, a small ovoid mortar, 5
or 6 inches in diameter, and a flattish mortar or dish, 7 or 8 inches in
diameter. These have since been lost to sight. On another occasion a lot of
obsidian blades, or spear-heads, eleven in number and averaging 10 inches in
length, were brought to him by workmen from the mine." The accounts
differ. Holmes said about Neale, "In his conversation with me he did not
claim to have been in the mine when the finds were made. This might be
interpreted to mean that Neale had lied in his original statement." But
the just-quoted passages from Holmes are not the words of Neale but of Holmes,
who said, "His [Neale's] statements, written down in my notebook during
and immediately following the interview, were to the following effect." It
is debatable whether one should place more confidence in Holmes's indirect
summary of Neale's words than in Neale's own notarized affidavit, signed by
him. Significantly, we have no confirmation from Neale himself that Holmes's
version of their conversation was correct. That Holmes may have been mistaken
is certainly indicated by a subsequent interview with Neale conducted by
William J. Sinclair in 1902. Summarizing Neale's remarks, Sinclair wrote,
"A certain miner (Joe), working on the day shift in the Montezuma Tunnel,
brought out a stone dish or platter about two inches thick. Joe was advised to
look for more in the same place... Mr. Neale went on the night shift and in
excavating to set a timber, 'hooked up' one of the obsidian spear points. With
the exception of the one brought out by Joe, all the implements were found
personally by Mr. Neale, at one time, in a space about six feet in diameter on
the shore of the channel. The implements were in gravel close to the bed-rock
and were mixed with a substance like charcoal." When all the testimony is
duly weighed, it appears that Neale himself did enter the mine and find stone
implements in place in the gravel. About the obsidian spearheads found by
Neale, Holmes said, "Obsidian blades of identical pattern were now and
then found with Digger Indian remains in the burial pits of the region."
The inference to be drawn from these facts is that the implements brought to
Mr. Neale had been obtained from one of the burial places in the vicinity by
the miners. But Holmes could produce no evidence that the any miners had
actually obtained the blades from burial pits. Holmes simply stated, "How
the eleven large spearheads got into the mine, or whether they came from the
mine at all, are queries that I shall not assume to answer." Using
Holmes's methods, one could discredit any paleoanthropological discovery ever
made: one could simply refuse to believe the evidence as reported, and put
forward all kinds of vague alternative explanations, without answering
legitimate questions about them. In a paper read before the American Geological
Society in 1891, geologist George F. Becker said, "It would have been more
satisfactory to me individually if I had myself dug out these implements, but I
am unable to discover any reason why Mr. Neale's statement is not exactly as
good evidence to the rest of the world as my own would be. He was as competent
as I to detect any fissure from the surface or any ancient workings, which the
miner recognizes instantly and dreads profoundly. Someone may possibly suggest
that Mr. Neale's workmen 'planted' the implements, but no one familiar with
mining will entertain such a suggestion for a moment. The auriferous gravel is
hard picking in large part it requires blasting, and even a very incompetent
supervisor could not possibly be deceived in this way... In short, there is, in
my opinion, no escape from the conclusion that the implements mentioned in Mr.
Neale's statement actually occurred near the bottom of the gravels, and that
they were deposited where they were found at the same time with the adjoining
pebbles and matrix."
Evolutionary Preconceptions
One might ask why Holmes and Sinclair were so determined to discredit Whitney's
evidence for the existence of Tertiary humans. The following statement by
Holmes provides an essential clue. "Perhaps if Professor Whitney had fully
appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood today, he would
have hesitated to announce the conclusions formulated, notwithstanding the
imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted." In other words,
if the facts do not fit the favored theory, the facts, even an imposing array
of them, must go. It is not hard to see why a supporter of the idea of human
evolution, such as Holmes, would want to do everything possible to discredit
information pushing the existence of humans in their present form too far into
the past. Why did Holmes feel so confident about doing so? One reason was the
discovery in 1891, by Eugene Dubois, of Java man (Pithecanthropus erectus),
hailed as the much sought after missing link connecting modern humans with
supposedly ancestral apelike creatures. Holmes stated that Whitney's evidence
stands absolutely alone and that it implies a human race older by at least
one-half than Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois. For those who accepted the
controversial Java man, any evidence suggesting the modern human type existed
before him had to be cut down, and Holmes was one of the principal hatchet men.
Holmes, Sinclair, and others all did their part, using questionable tactics.
Nevertheless, in the early part of the twentieth century, the intellectual
climate favored the views of Holmes and Sinclair. Tertiary stone implements
just like those of modern humans? Soon it became uncomfortable to report,
unfashionable to defend, and convenient to forget such things. Such views
remain in force today, so much so that discoveries that even slightly challenge
dominant views about human prehistory are effectively suppressed.
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