Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [279]
Anomalous Human Skeletal Remains
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries quite a number of scientists found stone implements and other artifacts in Tertiary and early Quaternary formations. Scientists also discovered anatomically modern human skeletal remains in similarly ancient geological contexts.
Although these human bones originally attracted considerable attention, they are now practically unknown. Most current literature gives one the impression that after the discovery of the first Neanderthal in the 1850s no significant skeletal finds were made until the discovery of Java man in the 1890s.
For example, in describing the aftermath of the first Neanderthal find in 1856, anthropologist Jeffrey Goodman (1982, p. 56) wrote: “In the decades that followed, only discoveries of very old and crudely fashioned stone tools were made.” As we shall see, this is simply not true. Why, then, do we rarely, if ever, encounter discussions of the skeletal finds of this period in modern paleoanthropological literature? One reason may be that these finds contradict the current scenario of human evolution.
We shall now consider these skeletal remains, some more challenging to the accepted views of human evolution than others. These anomalous discoveries are not numerous, but then the accepted hominid skeletal remains enshrined in museums around the world are also limited in number. More than one author has declared that the essential skeletal evidence supporting the idea that human beings evolved from apelike creatures would fit on a billiard table or two.
R. N. Vasishat (1985, p. 1) stated that the “fossil primate record is poor and within it, the record of fossil man still poorer.” He added, however, that the few remains that have been recovered “when considered in the context of evolutionary evidences, known for other vertebrates with a better fossil record, allow us justifiable efforts at primate phylogenetic restorations” (Vasishat 1985, p. 1).
At first glance, the hominid fossils mentioned by Vasishat seem to support the phylogenetic restorations one usually encounters in textbooks and museums, but these restorations of evolutionary lineages fall apart when we include the human skeletal remains presented in this chapter.
In discussing these human bones, we shall focus first on their circumstances of discovery and the resulting stratigraphic age determinations, which are beyond the range modern evolutionary theory would permit. We shall begin with the least anomalous discoveries and then discuss those that are more so. In Appendix 1, we will review negative critiques by modern scientists, who have used chemical and radiometric methods to discredit the anomalously old stratigraphic dates assigned to some of the skeletal remains.
6.1 Middle and early Pleistocene discoveries
The first finds we shall consider are from the Middle and Early Pleistocene. The Trenton femur, if correctly dated, would be about 100,000 years old, which is anomalous for North America. The Galley Hill skeleton, from England, and the Moulin Quignon jaw, the Clichy skeleton, and the La Denise skull fragment, from France, are of ambiguous age, but are nevertheless relevant to our study of how scientists treat paleoanthropological evidence. The Ipswich skeleton appears to place anatomically modern humans in England during the Hoxnian interglacial, over 300,000 years ago. Many other Middle Pleistocene sites in Europe are linked with Homo erectus, even though no skeletal remains have been found. We argue that the tools and other artifacts found at these sites could just as well be attributed to anatomically modern Homo sapiens. A fully modern skull found by workmen excavating a dry dock in the harbor of Buenos Aires, Argentina takes us back to the Early Pleistocene. We shall also discuss a very primitive skullcap from Brazil, indicating the presence of creatures resembling Homo erectus in South