Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [229]
5.2.3 Romero’s Critique of the Miramar Site
Carlos Ameghino’s views about the antiquity of humans in Argentina were challenged by Antonio Romero. In a paper published in the Anales de la Sociedad Cientifica Argentina, Romero (1918) contradicted not only Carlos Ameghino, but his more famous late brother, Florentino Ameghino, who had for many years conducted research establishing a human presence in Argentina during the Tertiary. Quite apart from his work in paleoanthropology, Florentino Ameghino had gained an international reputation in the fields of paleontology and geology. A great deal of Argentine national pride was thus invested in Florentino Ameghino, who had almost singlehandedly focused the attention of the world’s scientific community on his country. Romero was therefore very careful to frame his criticism of the Ameghinos with attention to Argentine patriotic sensibilities.
Early in the twentieth century, a dominant group within the scientific community was trying to “bury” evidence suggesting a human presence in the Tertiary. Romero was a supporter of this policy. In his paper, Romero (1918, p. 22), called special attention to the book Fossil Man, recently published by Hugo Obermaier, a noted European scientist who dismissed F. Ameghino’s conclusions about a human presence in the Miocene and Pliocene of Argentina. Taking Obermaier’s view as correct, and representative of responsible scientific opinion, Romero suggested that Carlos Ameghino and his supporters, by insisting on a human presence in the Tertiary of Argentina, were bringing ridicule and discredit upon the Argentine nation. Concerning Florentino Ameghino, Romero pleaded that Argentine science should continue to hold him in high regard for his valuable and quite extensive work in the areas of geology and paleontology, but that it was now time to set aside his unfortunate conclusions in the area of paleoanthropology, and thus preserve his reputation as a great scientist. Romero (1918, p. 15) wrote: “We now have to consolidate the monument of his work, casting out the fantastic discoveries that have so much preoccupied simpleminded spirits and cost our country so much, greatly injuring the work of the great scientist and his contribution to our culture.”
As part of his investigation of Carlos Ameghino’s discoveries, Romero visited the Miramar area. There he took time to view the fairly recent stone implements displayed in the small museum of Jose Maria Dupuy, a local collector. The implements had been gathered from the paraderos (settlements) of the coastal Indians. Noting the similarity of Dupuy’s specimens to those Carlos Ameghino had forwarded to the Museum of National History in Buenos Aires from his exacavations in the Chapadmalalan formation at Miramar, Romero (1918, p. 12) stated that he was “convinced they were made by the same artificers who made those that are considered to belong to a fanciful epoch.” In other words, Romero believed that Carlos Ameghino’s discoveries were manufactured by Indians in relatively recent times.
Romero (1918, p. 15) went on to state that notwithstanding the similarity of C. Ameghino’s Miramar implements to objects recently manufactured by Indians “there are arguments of a more fundamental order that we intend to pose in support of our thesis.” Romero (1918, p. 15) said he would “demonstrate with incontestable facts, in the plain light of truth, that it was false to suppose that artifacts discovered at Las Brusquitas [Miramar], resembling classical types of the Neolithic age, can be attributed to human beings that existed in the Miocene [Late Pliocene according to modern estimates].”
After reading Romero’s combative introductory remarks, one might expect to find in his report some cogent geological reasoning backed up with convincing facts. Instead one finds assertions backed up with little more than some unique and fanciful views of the geological history