Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [141]
Again, it should be kept clearly in mind that in discussing how the English eoliths relate to modern evolutionary scenarios centering on a Late Pleistocene origin of the human species, we are deliberately excluding from consideration the extensive evidence (in the form of incised and broken animal bones, stone implements, and modern human skeletal remains) that places humans of the modern type in the Early Pliocene, the Miocene, and even more distant geological periods. When this evidence is admitted into the discussion, as we believe it should be, the discovery of stone implements in the Pliocene in England or anywhere else poses no particular problems.
Where has all of the preceding discussion left us? The main conclusion is that most modern paleoanthropologists are unable to cope with stone tools from periods and places that even slightly deviate from entrenched ideas about the time for the migration of the Homo line out of its Africa homeland. Evidence is submitted to intense negative criticism for no other reason than that it conflicts with established views. If this is true of evidence that lies on the very borderline of acceptability, then what kind of treatment can one expect for otherwise good evidence that happens to lie completely beyond the range of current expectations, such as the Miocene implements discovered in France and Portugal (Sections 4.1–3)? Silence and ridicule are the receptions most likely to be encountered.
Of course, even after having heard all of the arguments for eoliths being of human manufacture, arguments which will certainly prove convincing to many, some might still legitimately maintain a degree of doubt. Could such a person, it might be asked, be forgiven for not accepting the eoliths? The answer to that question is a qualified yes. The qualification is that one should then reject other stone tool industries of a similar nature. This would mean the rejection of large amounts of currently accepted lithic evidence, including for example, the Oldowan industries of East Africa and the crude stone tool industry of Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien) in China.
3.7 Acceptable Eoliths: The Stone Tools of Zhoukoudian and Olduvai Gorge
We shall now examine some stone tools broadly similar to but in some cases even more primitive than European eoliths such as those found by Benjamin Harrison and J. Reid Moir. Unlike the European eoliths, these implements are unquestioningly accepted by modern paleoanthropologists. It would seem, however, that if tools comparable to the European eoliths are considered genuine, then to be consistent, the European eoliths should also be accepted as genuine.
3.7.1 Accepted Implements from Zhoukoudian (Middle Pleistocene)
One industry similar to the European Eolithic industries is that found at Zhoukoudian, the site of the Peking man discoveries. The Zhoukoudian tools, comprising natural flakes modified with unifacial chipping, compare favorably with the European eoliths. In fact, the crudeness of the tools at Zhoukoudian (Figure 3.28) was unexpected. Peking man was classified as Homo erectus, who in Europe and Africa was usually associated with the more advanced bifacially flaked Acheulean implements. Anthropologist Alan Lyle Bryan (1986, p. 7) stated: “less than 2% of the 100,000 artifacts recovered from the living floors at Zhoukoudian Locality I exhibit bifacial edge retouch.”
Zhang Shensui of China described the implements from the lower levels of Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian: “Tools fashioned from cores, pebbles and small chunks of stone outnumber those made on flake blanks. This assemblage is typologically simple, consisting primarily of choppers and scrapers. Points and gravers occur only rarely and are very crudely retouched” (Zhang 1985, p. 168). When illustrations of the eoliths found on the Kent Plateau and in East Anglia (Figures 3.3, p. 95; 3.6, p. 121; 3.12, and p. 136) are set alongside those of tools from Zhoukoudian, we do not notice much of a difference in workmanship.
Figure 3.28. These tools from the Zhoukoudian cave seem cruder