Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [127]
Alan Lyle Bryan, a Canadian anthropologist, recently wrote (1986, p. 6): “The question of how to distinguish naturefacts from artifacts is far from being resolved and demands more research. The way the problem was resolved in England, by application of the Barnes’ statistical method of measuring the angles of platform scar, is not generally applicable to all problems of differentiating naturefacts from artifacts.” During a phone conversation with one of us on May 28, 1987, Bryan stated that application of the Barnes criterion would, for example, eliminate any blade tools struck from polyhedral cores. He also expressed a cautious belief that Barnes may have gone too far in trying to eliminate all of the anomalous European stone tool industries. Giving attention to more recent discoveries, Bryan said that Peter White has shown there are Late Pleistocene Australian tools that do not conform to Barnes’s specifications.
An example of an industry that apparently does not conform with the Barnes criterion is the Oldowan, from the lower levels of the Olduvai Gorge. At site DK at the bottom of Bed I, 242 whole flakes were recovered. A striking platform angle could be measured on 132 of these. Mary Leakey (1971, p. 39) recorded the following results:
70–89° 90–109° 110–129° 130°+4.6% 47.7% 46.2% 1.5%
As can be seen, over 95 percent of the angles are obtuse. However, it is not clear from Leakey’s report exactly which angle was being measured. We discussed this with Ruth D. Simpson and her colleagues at the San Bernardino County Museum of Natural History, near Redlands, California. They were also unable to tell from Mary Leakey’s report exactly what angle was being measured. This is a general problem that we have encountered in our review of angle studies on stone tool industries. The vagueness of the descriptions of the angles being measured by various investigators makes it difficult to compare findings and calls into question the scientific usefulness of such reporting.
As far as the implements from Olduvai are concerned, if the angle being measured was the angle used by Barnes, or an equivalent angle, then the Oldowan industry, although universally accepted, does not meet the Barnes criterion. Considering the extremely crude nature of the objects, which Louis Leakey said were comparable to Moir’s implements, it is remarkable that they have never been subjected to the slightest challenge by the scientific community. This is probably because the Oldowan industry offers support to the African evolution hypothesis of human origins, which is accepted as dogma.
During the 1950s, the Barnes method was criticized by George F. Carter, who had discovered crude stone implements at various sites in the San Diego area, principally at Texas Street. The tools, mostly pebble choppers and quartzite flakes, were referred to the last interglacial. They were assigned dates of about 100,000 years, which violates the currently accepted idea that humans entered the Americas no more than 30,000 years ago, with most authorities adhering to a more conservative figure of approximately 12,000 years.
Reacting to attempts to dismiss the tools by the same methods used to reject the European eoliths, Carter (1957, p. 323) stated: “Comparison of the San Diego County material with that of Europe has severe limitations placed upon it that seem to have been missed by some people. The lithic materials are extremely different—quartzite and porphyries in California versus glassy rocks of the flint family in Europe. There is no frost action of solifluction or any related phenomenon in the San Diego area now nor was there any during the Pleistocene. There is no limestone area to founder and produce pressures.”
Specifically referring to the Barnes method, Carter (1957, p. 329) noted: “Clearly,