Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [118]
Figure 3.22. These objects, from an Eocene formation at Clermont (Oise), France, were characterized by H. Breuil as “pseudoeoliths” (Breuil 1910, pp. 389, 392, 400, 401).
Figure 3.23. A stone object discovered in the Eocene strata at Clermont (Oise), France (Breuil 1910, p. 394). It was characterized by Breuil as a pseudoeolith, produced by geological pressure. As evidence Breuil cited the presence in the same formation of detached flakes lying very close to the parent blocks of flint (Figures 3.20, 3.21). But implementlike objects as sophisticated as the one pictured here were not found with detached flakes lying nearby. This raises serious doubts about the viability of Breuil’s geological pressure hypothesis.
It seems, therefore, unfair to insist that the numerous better looking “pseudoeoliths” from the Eocene at Clermont, such as those shown in Figure 3.22, must have been formed by the same process of natural geological pressure flaking that had produced the extremely crude flakes.
But that is just what Breuil did in his report: “By means of this simple mechanical process, which one is able to perceive quite literally, there have nevertheless resulted the fractures, cleavages, terminal and marginal retouchings that simulate with extreme perfection the action of a voluntary agent with the preconceived intention of producing various elementary industrial artifacts, and, in exceptional cases, pseudomorphs of definite implements, not only eoliths” (1910, pp. 403–404).
This assertion does not, however, very easily follow from the examples presented by Breuil. He would have been justified in making such a statement only if he could have pointed to examples of the better looking eoliths found in contact with the parent blocks. And this he did not do.
Also, some of the implementlike objects from the Eocene formation at Clermont were themselves whole pieces of flint, from which chips had been removed to form the working edge. The object depicted in Figure 3.23 provides a good example. The unidirectional chipping concentrated on the upper edge is typical of intentional human work. If Breuil had discovered the implement shown in Figure 3.23 with a dozen or more chips lying alongside the chipped edge, we might be less doubtful about his argument. But in the absence of such a demonstration, intentional human work remains a more viable explanation.
3.4.2 “Two Truly Exceptional Objects” (Eocene)
The unsatisfactory nature of Breuil’s geological pressure hypothesis becomes even clearer when we turn our consideration to what Breuil (1910, p. 402) called “two truly exceptional objects, of which the site of discovery, in the interior of the beds, is absolutely certain.”
Describing the first object (Figure 3.24), which he characterized as a grattoir, or end scraper, Breuil (1910, p. 402) wrote: “The grattoir presents a blackish green patina, extremely brilliant, which is present on only a small number of small pieces of flint found in the sands.”
The formation of patina occurs where the cortex, or rough outer surface of the flint, is chipped away, exposing the glassy interior to the atmosphere. Breuil (1910, p. 403) observed: “The great majority of the flints are without patination, and their fracturing occurred in the interior of the soil at undetermined times and places.”
Breuil believed the presence of a brilliant patina on a small number of the flaked flints in the Eocene formation at Clermont meant they were fractured before they were incorporated into that formation. “Consequently,” said Breuil (1910, p. 403), “it can be concluded that the fracturing of these flints occurred in pre-Eocene times.” Therefore the pressure fracturing mechanism that Breuil used to explain the eolithlike objects at Clermont would not necessarily apply to the grattoir now under discussion.
In further describing the grattoir from the Eocene of Clermont, France, Breuil (1910, p. 402) observed: “Its plane of fracture shows a clear bulb of percussion; the other face