Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [277]
It is not hard to see why a supporter of the idea of human evolution, such as Holmes, would want to do everything possible to discredit information pushing the existence of humans in their present form too far into the past. Why did Holmes feel so confident about doing so? One reason was the discovery in 1891, by Eugene Dubois, of Java man (Pithecanthropus erectus), hailed as the much sought after missing link connecting modern humans with supposedly ancestral apelike creatures. Holmes (1899, p. 470) stated that Whitney’s evidence “stands absolutely alone” and that “it implies a human race older by at least one-half than Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois, which may be regarded as an incipient form of human creature only.” For those who accepted the controversial Java man (Chapter 7), any evidence suggesting the modern human type existed before him had to be cut down, and Holmes (1899, p. 448) was one of the principal hatchet men. Holmes stated about the California finds: “It is probable that without positive reinforcement the evidence would gradually lose its hold and disappear; but science cannot afford to await this tedious process of selection, and some attempt to hasten a decision is demanded.”
Holmes and his partner Hrdlicka warred long and hard to discredit all evidence for a human presence in the Americas any further back than four or five thousand years ago. During the nineteenth century, an extensive amount of evidence demonstrating a human presence far into the Tertiary had been amassed. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, it had become apparent to many American scientists that the decks had to be cleared.
Sinclair assisted in this task. In his introductory remarks to his paper on the California finds, Sinclair (1908, p. 108) wrote: “In working on the general problem of the time of man’s appearance in the California region, the Department of Anthropology of the University of California has taken up, as a necessary part of the investigation, a review of the evidence relating to the so-called auriferous gravel relics. The writer was commissioned to visit the localities where the discoveries of human remains reported by Whitney and others were made.”
Translation: Responsible scientists had concluded that modern human beings evolved from Pithecanthropus erectus, discovered in Java in 1891, in Middle Pleistocene formations. It was therefore an embarrassment to the University of California that it had in its collections stone implements said to date back well into the Tertiary. Further complicating the matter was the fact that the Tertiary age of these implements (and their human manufacturers) was vigorously advocated by the state geologist of California and other scientists. This contradicted the emerging picture of human evolution in general, as well as the increasingly accepted view that humans entered the Americas only recently. Sinclair was thus “commissioned” to do the required demolition job, and he did it well.
As might be guessed, Sinclair shared the evolutionary bias of Holmes, and it was this bias, more than anything else, that determined his negative attitude toward the California evidence. Sinclair (1908, pp. 129–130) wrote: “The occurrence in the older auriferous gravels of human remains indicative of a state of culture and a degree of physical development equal to that of the existing Indians of the Sierra Nevada would necessitate placing the origin of the human race in an exceedingly remote geological period. This is contrary to all precedent in the history of organisms, which teaches that mammalian species are short-lived. In North America, there are abundant remains of the lower animals preserved in deposits ranging from the Eocene to the Pleistocene. In all these deposits, excepting those of late Pleistocene age, the remains of man or any creature directly ancestral to man are conspicuously absent. No remains of Anthropoidea (from which man is doubtless