• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

There are a number of comments that can be made about Sinclair’s statements. As far as the history of organisms is concerned, we propose that our investigation of human antiquity shows that the history of other organisms might be different than Sinclair supposed. We began this present study for the purpose of evaluating the claim that all available evidence supports an evolutionary view of human origins, with modern humans descending quite recently from more apelike predecessors. We have determined, after thorough investigation, that such is not the case, that there is in fact abundant evidence that human beings of modern type have coexisted with more apelike creatures as far back in time as we care to extend our research. This clearly contradicts the usual claims made by evolutionists. We are therefore not certain what an objective evaluation of the fossil evidence for the history of other mammalian species might reveal.

Sinclair further maintained that human remains are absent from all North American deposits “excepting those of late Pleistocene age.” He also stated: “It has been reported on the preceding pages that a large proportion of the implements reported from the gravels are from those of the rhyolitic and intervolcanic epochs. This would mean that man of a type as high as the existing race was a contemporary of the three-toed horse and other primitive forms of the late Miocene and early Pliocene, a thesis to which all geological and biological evidence is opposed” (Sinclair 1908, p. 130).

But if one were to agree that the California auriferous gravel discoveries should be rejected just because nothing like them had been discovered before, one would then be obliged to reject any fundamentally new paleontological discoveries whatsoever. Of course, it should be pointed out that at the time Sinclair was writing there was in fact abundant evidence, from North America, South America, and Europe, attesting to a human presence in the Early Pleistocene, Pliocene, Miocene, and earlier geological periods. If Sinclair was aware of this evidence, which he should have been, he simply chose to ignore it. Concerning Sinclair’s assertion that no evidence of any anthropoid creatures had been found in North America, even this is contrary to the facts (Chapter 10).

In short, there was good reason to accept the California finds, as well as the many other discoveries we have reviewed in our discussion of anomalous stone tool industries. Nevertheless, in the early part of the twentieth century, the intellectual climate favored the views of Holmes and Sinclair. Tertiary stone implements just like those of modern humans? Soon it became uncomfortable to report, unfashionable to defend, and convenient to forget such things. Such views remain in force today, so much so that discoveries that even slightly challenge dominant views about human prehistory are effectively suppressed.

Concluding our study of anomalous stone tool industries, let us review some of the main points of interest. (1) Anomalous stone tool industries are not rare, isolated occurrences. The cases we have discussed form a massive body of evidence. Although many discoveries occurred in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they have continued to occur up to the present. (2) Anomalous stone tool industries from very early times are not limited to eoliths, the human manufacture of which is considered by some as doubtful. Artifacts of undoubted human manufacture, similar to those of the finest Neolithic craftsmanship, are known to occur in geological contexts of extreme antiquity, as demonstrated by the California discoveries. (3) The much-debated eoliths are comparable to many unquestioningly accepted crude stone tool industries. Furthermore, eoliths appear to bear signs of intentional work not encountered in rocks broken by purely natural forces. (4) The scientific reporting of anomalous stone tool industries, even in the nineteenth century, was rigorous and of high quality. (5) It is apparent that preconceptions about human