Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [188]
Verworn here makes an important point. From a viewpoint ranging from hundreds of thousands to several million years after the fact, it is very difficult to connect stone implements with particular sets of physiological remains from the same period, if such exist. As we explain in Chapter 6, fossil skeletal remains indistinguishable from those of fully modern humans have been found in Pliocene, Miocene, and even Eocene and earlier geological contexts. When we also consider that humans living today make implements not much different from those taken from Miocene beds in France and elsewhere, then the validity of the standard sequence of human evolution begins to seem tenuous. In fact, the standard sequence only makes sense when a lot of very good evidence is ignored. When all the available evidence, implemental and skeletal, is considered, it is quite difficult to construct any kind of evolutionary sequence. What we are left with is the supposition that there have been various types of human and humanlike beings, living at the same time and manufacturing stone tools of various levels of sophistication, for tens of millions of years into the past.
4.3.4 A Footnote on Aurillac
Shortly after Verworn’s excavations at Aurillac (Cantal), the French researcher L. Mayet delivered a report about his own investigations, which led him to the conclusion that the objects found there were products of nature rather than the result of intentional human work. In a footnote to his famous report on the “pseudoeoliths” of Clermont (Section 3.4), Breuil referred to “Mayet’s study of Cantal, where in the dislocated strata he found broken blocks of flint resembling eoliths.” Breuil (1910, p. 407) stated: “There you also have some broken flints with the pieces still held in place by the sandy matrix.” This was obviously to be taken as conclusive and final proof that the stone tools of Puy Courny, like those of Clermont, were produced by geological pressures rather than human action.
But not everyone responded as favorably as Breuil to Mayet’s report, originally delivered at a meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Lyon in 1906. Dr. Hermann Klaatsch (1907, p. 765) later wrote: “At a time when the problem of primitive stone artifacts is in a phase permeated with complete lack of clarity, we must happily receive every work that without prejudiced views attempts a factual solution to the eolith puzzle, and we should also give due recognition to the courage of the author who attempts to deal with such troublesome material. In every genuine discussion, opposition is just as welcome as agreement. In this spirit, the authorities who, like myself, are in favor of the human manufacture of the Tertiary flint objects of Cantal, will find especially worthy of attention any work that attempts to demonstrate they were formed by purely natural causes.” Klaatsch (1907, p. 765) added something Breuil neglected to mention: “It must be noted that L. Mayet in no way shares the radically negative standpoint of Boule, but instead fully recognizes the artifactual nature of the Belgian eoliths [Section 4.4].”
Mayet had twice visited the classic Cantal sites (Puy Boudieu and Puy Courny) and conducted excavations. Klaatsch (1907, p. 765) wrote: “After his introductory lecture, in which Mayet gave assurances that he could supply proofs of the natural process by which the flint objects had been formed, I was extremely disappointed by the way he sought to demonstrate his point. I had hoped that he would clearly inform me about the ways in which natural forces had acted so ingeniously as to transform the site at Puy Boudieu into ‘a veritable eolith factory.’ That significant shifting and