Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [115]
3.4 Breuil and Barnes: Two Famous Debunkers of Eoliths
In paleoanthropology, we sometimes encounter the definitive debunking report—a report that is repeatedly cited as having decisively invalidated a particular discovery or general category of evidence. In the case of European eoliths, two papers are good examples of definitive debunking reports. These are H. Breuil’s paper claiming that pseudoeoliths were formed by geological pressure in the French Eocene formations at Clermont (Oise), and A. S. Barnes’s paper claiming to demonstrate, by statistical analysis of platform striking angles, the natural origin of Eolithic industries. We shall now review these two papers.
3.4.1 Breuil’s Attempt to End the Eolith Controversy
In 1910, Abbé Henri Breuil conducted investigations he thought would put an end to the eolith controversy. In his often cited report (“Sur La Présence d’Éolithes a la Base de l’Éocene Parisien”), Breuil said that for several years his attention had been drawn to the gravel pits of Belle-Assise, near Clermont, in the department of Oise, northeast of Paris. Excavations there had exposed a bed of chalk, which formed the stratigraphic base for the overlying formations. Above the chalk was a bed of clay containing layers of angular pieces of flint, interspersed with layers of gravel and sand. Above the flint-bearing clay was a very thick deposit of greenish Bracheux sands, which belong to the Thanetian formation, at the base of the Eocene (Obermaier 1924, p. 12). Breuil concluded that the flint-bearing beds below the sands must therefore belong to the very beginning of the Eocene. They would thus be about 50–55 million years old according to modern dating. Some modern authorities put the Thanetian formation as far back as the Late Paleocene, at 55–60 million years (Marshall et al. 1977, p. 1326). Above the Bracheux sands were gravel deposits from the Pliocene and Pleistocene.
“With the onset of the discussions concerning the question of how the eoliths were produced, ” wrote Breuil (1910, p. 386), “I frequently thought that an examination of the broken flints at the base of the Bracheux sands of the Thanetian at Belle-Assise would yield some interesting observations.” Breuil gathered specimens over the course of three years, carefully observing patterns of breakage. “I always avoided using metal tools to extract the flints, and also took care to reject those that had been subjected to contact from the picks of the workers. It is somewhat easy, at the moment one extracts a flint, to examine its surfaces, to see if the fracturing has been produced recently, or if the breakage took place before the excavation. The surfaces of ancient fractures always have thin deposits of iron or manganese” (Breuil 1910, p. 386).
Breuil (1910, pp. 386–387) then stated: “Having noted, without any possibility of doubt, the presence of flints with fractures indicative of intentional work and retouching, and thus resembling what are called eoliths, I invited many persons to come and confirm the fact. Capitan, Cartailhac, and Obermaier were able, along with me, to collect these characteristic flint objects with their own hands. Mr. Commont, with whom I had the pleasure of making an inspection of the flint-bearing strata, also collected some specimens. Furthermore, Commont found flints with features resembling intentional work and retouching in various Eocene exposures in Picardy. The stratigraphic position of the discoveries was the same as at Belle-Assise.”
Breuil then described specimens that displayed retouching, bulbs of percussion, and striking platforms. Some showed regular bifacial flaking, typical of Late Paleolithic implements. Others had chipping confined to the side of the flake opposite the bulb of percussion, another characteristic of human work. But Breuil (1910, p. 388) warned: “If in our descriptions we use terminology that normally is applied to proper tools of human