Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [250]
In recent years, a minority of archeologists have begun to accept sites showing a human presence in North America over 30,000 years ago. It is noteworthy that few of these archeologists mention the Sheguiandah site, testifying to the effectiveness of the suppression of reports regarding it. An exception is W. N. Irving of the University of Toronto. As early as 1971, he was drawing attention to sites at Old Crow River and Edmonton that yielded deliberately fractured bone from the middle and early Wisconsin respectively (Irving 1971, pp. 69, 71). The
Edmonton site may have been late Sangamon interglacial.
Irving (1971, p. 71) then wrote: “I think our recent findings require that Sheguiandah be reexamined, for the investigations there were not completed. No one has yet suggested an age of 30,000 years or more for Sheguiandah, and I do not do so now, but I would like very much to know how old it really is, and what is there.” Irving was apparently unaware of Sanford’s work, or deliberately avoided saying anything about it.
The most favorable review of Sheguiandah we have yet been able to locate comes from José Luis Lorenzo, of the National Institute for Anthropology and History, in Mexico City. He wrote (Lorenzo 1978, p. 4): “The site is a complex one with several levels of likely occupancy due to the fact that there is a type of quartzite on the island that is an excellent material for artifacts. Various series of artifacts were also found mixed with glacial debris at the bottom of the stratigraphy. All the studies on the glacial ecology of the area indicate that the remains not mixed with till are later than 12,500 years ago, whereas those that were mixed go back over 30,000 years according to available data (Prest 1969; Flint 1971; Dreimanis and Goldthwait 1973).”
It would seem that the Sheguiandah site deserves more attention than it has thus far received. The discoverer, Thomas E. Lee, certainly felt frustrated because of this. Looking back to the time when it first became apparent to him that stone implements were being found in glacial till, T. E. Lee (1968, p. 22) wrote: “At this point, a wiser man would have filled the trenches and crept away in the night, saying nothing. Books had been written, lectures had been given, pronouncements made, and armchairs comfortably filled. . . . Indeed, while visiting the site, one prominent anthropologist, after exclaiming in disbelief, ‘You aren’t finding anything down there? ’ and being told by the foreman, ‘The hell we aren’t! Get down in here and look for yourself!,’ urged me to forget all about what was in the glacial deposits and to concentrate upon the more recent materials overlying them. Today, 13 years after vigorous professional efforts succeeded in halting the investigation of that great site, the same arguments and distortions are spreading through the literature. . . . The sacred cow must be defended, and to hell with the facts.”
5.4.2 Lewisville: The Vendetta Goes On (Late Pleistocene)
In 1958, at a site near Lewisville, Texas, stone tools and burned animal bones were found in association with hearths. Later, as the excavation progressed, radiocarbon dates of at least 38,000 years were announced for charcoal from the hearths. Still later, a Clovis point was found. Herbert Alexander, who was a graduate student in archeology at the time, recalled how this sequence of finds was received. “On a number of occasions,” stated Alexander (1978, p. 20), “I had the opportunity to listen to faculty and visitors discuss their visits to this site. The opinions voiced at that time were that the hearths were man-made, and the faunal associations valid. Once the dates were announced, however, some opinions were changed and after the Clovis point was found, the process of picking and ignoring began in earnest. Those who had previously accepted the hearths and/or faunal associations began to question