Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [159]
Ribeiro immediately began his own investigations, and in many localities found “flakes of worked flint and quartzite in the interior of the beds.” Ribeiro (1873a, p. 97) said: “I was greatly surprised when I forcefully extracted, with my own hand, worked flints, from deep inside a bed of limestone which had been inclined at an angle of 30–50 degrees from the horizontal.” The geology of the region indicated the limestone bed was of Tertiary age, yet the presence of the stone implements, so obviously the work of humans, placed Ribeiro in a dilemma. The discovery of the implements “deep inside” the beds seemed to rule out the possibility that they had been artificially introduced at some later period. So if he accepted the beds as Tertiary, then humans must have existed during that time. But Ribeiro felt he must submit to the prevailing scientific dogma that human beings were not older than the Quaternary. To this very day authorities hold that humans of the modern type did not appear until the very latest part of the Pleistocene. So Ribeiro looked for and found a way to designate the limestone formation as Quaternary. He remained troubled at heart, however, for the geological facts he himself had observed were leading him to the forbidden conclusion that humans had existed in times more ancient than the Quaternary (Ribeiro 1873a, p. 97).
In 1866, on the official geological maps of Portugal, Ribeiro reluctantly assigned Quaternary ages to certain of the implement-bearing strata. Upon seeing the maps, the French geologist de Verneuil took issue with Ribeiro’s judgement, pointing out that the so-called Quaternary beds were, according to geological evidence, certainly Pliocene or Miocene.
Meanwhile, in France, the Abbé Louis Bourgeois, a reputable investigator, had reported finding stone implements in Tertiary beds, and some authorities had supported him. Thus, under the twin influences of de Verneuil’s criticism and the discoveries of Bourgeois, Ribeiro resolved his inner conflict and decided that the geological and paleontological facts could no longer be ignored. He began openly reporting that implements of human manufacture were being found in Pliocene and Miocene formations in Portugal (Ribeiro 1873a, p. 98).
From the standpoint of modern geology, Ribeiro’s assessment of the age of the formations in the Tagus River valley near Lisbon is generally correct. Modern authorities have observed seven Miocene cycles of sedimentation and one Pliocene cycle (Antunes et al. 1980, p. 136). The Late Tertiary (including the Pliocene and Miocene) is sometimes called the Neogene. In a study focusing on the Neogene formations of Europe, Ivan Chicha (1970, p. 50) said about Portugal: “The Neogene beds are known from the basin situated in the lower reach of the river Tejo [Tagus], in the environs of Lisbon. The Oligocene beds, prevalently of freshwater continental origin . . . are overlain by beds . . . which are placed in the oldest Miocene—Aquitanian.” According to Chicha, these Aquitanian beds are surmounted by limestones and claystones that ascend to the Tortonian stage of the Late Miocene. Another recent study (Antunes et al. 1980, p. 138) included a chart showing the lithostratigraphic units in the Tagus basin. Limestones, such as those in which Ribeiro found stone tools, occur in the Middle and Early Miocene.
In considering stone implements, three questions