Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [102]
Bury’s point is well worth noting, for one often encounters something like the following in discussions of eoliths by their detractors. The skeptical authority will point out that such and such scientist found in Tertiary strata stone objects he incautiously believed to be of human manufacture and that the discovery was a matter of controversy for some years until such and such scientist delivered his definitive report that conclusively demonstrated that the stone objects had been produced by the pressure of the overlying layers. But in recounting this history the skeptical authority ignores the fact that the original discoverer had carefully considered and dismissed that very possibility. In considering the eolith question with an open mind, one learns to be suspicious of definitive disproofs, which often turn out to be quite rickety intellectual contraptions.
The notes of the discussion also recorded the following ironic remarks by one of the members of the Geological Society: “Mr. A. S. Kennard congratulated the author [Warren] on an important discovery, and considered that the paper strongly supported the claim for the human origin of the Kentish eoliths. He agreed with the author that it was unfair to decide from a few examples, and that the proper test was the whole group. Judged by this standard, neither of the series shown [by Warren] resembled the Kentish eoliths, since the more numerous and characteristic specimens [shown by Warren] were quite unknown on the Plateau” (Warren 1920, p. 251). Kennard thus turned the tables on Warren, taking his attempt to dismiss the eoliths as proof of their genuineness.
3.3.8 An International Commission of Scientists Decides in Favor of Moir
At this point, the controversy over Moir’s discoveries was submitted to an international commission of scientists for resolution. Coles (1968, p. 27) related that this group “was overwhelmingly in support of Moir’s conclusions, that the flints from the base of the Red Crag near Ipswich were in undisturbed strata, and that some of the flaking was indubitably of artificial origin.” In the words of the commission report: “The flints are found in a stratigraphic position, without trace of resorting, at the base of the Red Crag. A certain number of the flints do not appear to have been made by anything other than voluntary human action” (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 44).
The commission, formed at the request of the International Institute of Anthropology, was composed of Dr. L. Capitan, professor at the College of France and the School of Anthropology; Paul Fourmarier, professor of applied geology at the University of Liége and the School of Anthropology; Charles Fraipont, professor of paleontology at the University of Liége and the School of Anthropology; J. Hamal-Nandrin, professor of the School of Anthropology at Liége; Max Lohest, professor of geology at the University of Liége and the School of Anthropology; George Grant MacCurdy, professor at Harvard University; Mr. Nelson, archeologist of the National Museum of Natural History of New York; and Miles Burkitt, professor of prehistory at the University of Cambridge (Lohest et al. 1923, p. 54).
The commission wanted to settle the following questions (Lohest et al.1923, p. 53): “(1) At the point where the flints considered worked were discovered, is it established that the strata in which they were found are definitely Pliocene and that no action of resorting or intrusive deposition is responsible for the introduction