Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [256]
We have examined in some detail the cases of Hueyatlaco and El Horno in order to show that the dates for stone tools from these sites were solidly based on serious scientific analysis, more rigorous than in many accepted dating studies. However, due to the anomalous character of the 250,000-year figure, this dating has proven to be extremely controversial. The daters declared themselves to be “painfully aware” of the dilemma they had caused and “perplexed” about how to resolve it. Roald Fryxell said: “We have no reason to suppose that over decades, actually hundreds of years, of research in archaeology in the Old and New World our understanding of human prehistory is so inaccurate that we suddenly discover that our past understanding is all wrong. . . . On the other hand, the more geological information we’ve accumulated, the more difficult it is to explain how multiple methods of dating which are independent of each other might be in error by the same magnitude” (Denver Post, November 13, 1973).
According to Cynthia Irwin-Williams, the date of 250,000 years was impossible: “These tools surely were not in use at Valsequillo more than 200,000 years before the date generally accepted for development of analogous stone tools in the Old World, nor indeed more than 150,000 years before the appearance of Homo sapiens” (Szabo et al. 1969, p. 241).
Negative responses to the dating of the Valsequillo sites of Hueyatlaco and El Horno arise from acceptance of a theory of human evolution that was established by unwarranted elimination of extensive evidence for the extreme antiquity of humans in both the Old and New Worlds. In light of the total evidence, a date of 250,000 years b.p. for sophisticated stone tools is not greatly surprising. Ironically, in the treatment of the Valsequillo findings by the scientific community, we see the same tendency to suppress unwanted evidence that eliminated the earlier material and thereby rendered the Valsequillo dates unbelievable.
5.4.4.3 Negative Reception of the Hueyatlaco Evidence
Virginia Steen-McIntyre has sent us some of her correspondence, which documents the difficulties she had in publishing her findings on Hueyatlaco. We shall now introduce excerpts from this correspondence. Our purpose in doing so is to clarify how anomalous evidence is treated by the scientific community.
We have already shown that much evidence for the presence of anatomically and culturally modern humans in the Tertiary epoch was suppressed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainly because it conflicted with emerging theories of human evolution. Some might object that we have misinterpreted what went on in that period, taking the normal scientific procedures scientists use in differentiating good evidence from bad as some kind of diabolical plot to distort the truth. Others will maintain that even if good evidence was in fact rejected for reasons that appear unscientific in hindsight, this just does not happen any more. But the case of Hueyatlaco (along with Texas Street, Sheguiandah, Calico, and Lewisville) demonstrates otherwise.
Among the social processes that discourage acceptance and reporting of anomalous evidence are ridicule and gossip, including attacks on character and accusations of incompetence. Furthermore, discoveries have almost no impact in the world of science unless they are published in standard journals. The editorial process, especially the practice of anonymous peer review, often presents an insurmountable obstacle. Some submissions are met with a wall of silence. Others are shunted around for months, from editor to editor. Sometimes manuscripts are mysteriously lost in the shuffle. And while positive reports of anomalous evidence are subjected to