Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [272]
In response to Sinclair’s insinuations, the following points may be made. First of all, if as Sinclair himself stated, King was “a reliable observer,” it is extremely unlikely, next to impossible, that he did not consider the obvious likelihood of recementing. Second, the original description of the find, recorded by Becker, and attested to by King, stated that at first only the cylindrical broken end of the pestle was visible and that the rest of the pestle was embedded in the hardened gravel. A photograph of the pestle (Holmes 1899, plate XIV), shown three-quarters size, indicates that the pestle was at least four inches long. This means that the pestle was probably embedded at least a couple of inches in the hardened gravel. Sinclair, searching for evidence of secondary cementation, noted that this occurred to a depth of “at least” one inch on some of the rock surfaces. The recemented material was of sand. But the pestle found by King was embedded in a hard deposit of auriferous gravel that had only recently been exposed. Sinclair said it was unfortunate that the gravel matrix containing the cast of the pestle was not available for inspection, thereby implying that perhaps the pestle was embedded in something other than the auriferous gravel. But King’s statements, as recorded by Becker, make it clear that the pestle was found in the hard gravel deposits. Even Holmes, it should be remembered, hesitated to affirm that the pestle had been recemented onto the gravel in recent times.
Sinclair asserted that there was no way to confirm the authenticity of the discovery of the King pestle because all we now have is the specimen and the published report! The absurdity of this statement becomes apparent when we consider that specimens and reports of the circumstances of their discovery are all that we have to work from in almost all paleoanthropological discoveries ever made. Using Sinclair’s logic, we could assert that there is no way to confirm any of them. For example, Pithecanthropus erectus was discovered by Dubois in Java during the 1890s. By 1908, when Sinclair wrote about the King pestle, all that was left of Java man were the specimens, stored in a Dutch museum, and the published reports. Therefore the Java man discovery might also have been judged unconfirmable. But this Sinclair did not do. Why? Favored evidence, it appears, can pass where unfavored evidence cannot. That is one of the main messages of this book. Paleoanthropologists frequently apply very subjective standards in the process of accepting and rejecting evidence.
5.5.11 Finds at San Andreas and Spanish Creek
The next set of reports describes discoveries that were made under intact volcanic layers at places other than under the latite cap of Tuolumne Table Mountain. Whitney (1880, pp. 273–274) described some of these discoveries and their geological setting as follows: “The fact that human implements had been found in some of the mining claims near San Andreas, in gravel under the volcanic strata, was repeatedly mentioned to the writer by persons living in that vicinity, and Mr. Voy was successful in finding some of the parties personally concerned in these finds, and getting their written testimony in regard to them. . . . Through all the higher southeastern portion of this county [Calaveras] the streams run in deep parallel cañons, quite close to each other, and having the ridges between them capped with volcanic overflows, all seeming to form part of the grand lava system which has spread far down the Sierra slope from the vicinity of Silver Mountain. In the vicinity of San Andreas the volcanic accumulations consist of alternating layers of sand, gravel, and volcanic ashes and conglomerates, overlying, as usual in the Sierra, gravel deposits