Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [274]
George Saucedo of the California Division of Mines and Geology (personal communication, 1989) reported that the blue gravel is older than 23.8 million years. According to a study by R. S. Creely (1965), published in the bulletin of the California Division of Mines and Geology, the blue gravel is Eocene, or over 38 million years old. The implements found within the blue gravel would thus appear to be at least 23 million years old.
5.5.13 Evolutionary Preconceptions of Holmes and Sinclair
In light of the evidence we have presented, it is hard to justify the sustained opposition to the California finds by Holmes and Sinclair, who, as we have seen, were very reluctant to accept them as evidence of humans living in Tertiary times. Let us now review their five principal arguments.
(1) Holmes and Sinclair proposed that the discoveries of stone artifacts may have been the result of trickery by miners. But it is hard to see how or why such practical jokers could have slipped unseen into dozens of different mines over a distance of 100 miles, depositing numerous stone artifacts over a period of many years, or that so many miners would have assisted persons engaged in such trickery by not reporting them. Presumably, the motive would have been to deceive anthropologists, but this would have been a lot of work (some of the artifacts weighed 30 or more pounds) for what would seem to be an insignificant reward.
(2) Holmes (1899, p. 471) stated that none of the stone mortars showed evidence of unusual age or evidence of “wear and tear that would come from transportation in Tertiary torrents.” But one would not expect such simple, durable mortars to show much evidence of age; once buried they could remain undamaged for millions of years. As far as “Tertiary torrents” are concerned, why should we assume that rivers were always torrents during Tertiary times? Perhaps, as in the case of most other rivers within our experience, these rivers sometimes flowed swiftly and fiercely but at other times slowly and calmly. Furthermore, it is possible that stone implements were dropped into the streams at a point very close to the place where they became lodged in the gravels, or perhaps they were dropped on the banks of the streams. In either case, one would not expect to find many signs of “wear and tear.”
(3) Were the stone mortars perhaps carried into the mines by Indians living nearby? Holmes (1899, pp. 449–450) suggested this was the case: “the mountain Indians were in those days very numerous about the mining camps. The men were employed to a considerable extent in the mines, and it is entirely reasonable to suppose that their implements and utensils would at times be carried into the mines, perhaps to prepare or contain food, or perhaps as a natural proceeding with half-nomadic peoples habitually carrying their property about.”
But Whitney (1880, p. 279) said of the portable mortars found in the mine shafts: “They are not in use at present among the Indians of that part of California where the implement in question is so abundantly found. The Digger Indians seem now, for some unknown reason, to prefer cavities worn in the rock in place, and in these the writer has often seen them crushing their acorns; but never once has he found them using the portable mortar.”
Holmes (1899, p. 447) countered that Whitney “made the mistake of supposing they used only fixed mortars, that is, those worked in the surface of large masses or outcrops of rock. The fact is that portable mortars and grinding stones of diversified form are and have been used by Indians in all parts of California.”
But modern authorities agree with Whitney. Glenn J. Farris, a California state archeologist, wrote to our researcher Steve Bernath: “Generally speaking the Indians of the gold rush period used bedrock mortars rather than the portable cobble mortars. The only instance I know of use of portable mortars in this area was to grind pine seeds into a pine nut butter, but I would see no reason for them to be carried into the mines” (personal communication, April 11, 1985).