Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [270]
Holmes (1899, p. 453) then stated: “I was not surprised when a few days later it was learned that obsidian blades of identical pattern were now and then found with Digger Indian remains in the burial pits of the region. The inference to be drawn from these facts is that the implements brought to Mr. Neale had been obtained from one of the burial places in the vicinity by the miners.”Here we must discount Holmes’s inference that the implements were brought to Neale by miners. We have established that Neale’s statements in his original affidavit, as confirmed by his later statements recorded by Sinclair, are deserving of credence, and these statements show quite clearly that Neale himself found the implements in the gravels. Holmes (1899, p. 453) then stated: “How the eleven large spearheads got into the mine, or whether they came from the mine at all, are queries that I shall not assume to answer.”
Using Holmes’s methods, it is clear that one could discredit any paleoanthropological discovery ever made: one could simply refuse to believe the evidence as reported, and put forward all kinds of vague alternative explanations, without answering legitimate questions about them. In the case under consideration, there is credible testimony by a reliable observer, Neale, that the implements were in fact found in the mine; therefore Holmes should not have failed to assume the burden of answering the queries he raised. Indeed, his failure to do
so raises justifiable doubt about the value of his queries.
Holmes (1899, p. 453) further wrote about the obsidian implements: “that they came from the bed of a Tertiary torrent seems highly improbable; for how could a cache of eleven, slender, leaf-like implements remain unscattered under these conditions; how could fragile glass blades stand the crushing and grinding of a torrent bed; or how could so large a number of brittle blades remain unbroken under the pick of the miner working in a dark tunnel?” As often as such objections are raised, we can answer, first of all, that one can imagine many circumstances in which a cache of implements might have remained undamaged in the bed of a Tertiary stream. Just for example, let us suppose that in Tertiary times a trading party, while crossing or navigating a stream, lost a number of obsidian blades securely wrapped in hide or cloth. The package of obsidian blades may have been rather quickly covered by gravel in a deep hole in the stream bed and remained there relatively undamaged until recovered tens of millions of years later. As to how the implements could have remained unbroken as they were being uncovered, answering that question poses no insuperable difficulties. As soon as Neale became aware of the presence of the blades, he could have, and apparently did, exercise sufficient caution to preserve the obsidian implements intact. Maybe he even broke some of them.
In a paper read before the American Geological Society and published in its journal, geologist George F. Becker (1891, pp. 192–193) said: “It would have been more satisfactory to me individually if I had myself dug out these implements, but I am unable to discover any reason why Mr. Neale’s statement is not exactly as good evidence to the rest of the world as my own would be. He was as competent as I to detect any fissure from the surface or any ancient workings, which the miner recognizes instantly and dreads profoundly. Some one may possibly suggest that Mr. Neale’s workmen ‘planted’ the implements, but no one familiar with mining will entertain such a suggestion for a moment. . . . The auriferous gravel is hard picking, in large part it requires blasting,