Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [282]
According to Stuart Fleming (1976, p. 189), the stratum in which the Galley Hill skeleton was discovered is more than 100,000 years old. K. P. Oakley and M. F. A. Montagu (1949, p. 34) commented that this stratum is Middle Pleistocene and is “broadly contemporary with the Swanscombe skull.” Oakley (1980, p. 26) and Gowlett (1984, p. 87) considered the Swanscombe skull, found only a short distance from Galley Hill, to be from the Holstein interglacial, which occurred about 330,000 years ago. The Galley Hill skeleton, if roughly contemporary with Swanscombe, would be of the same age.
In terms of anatomy, the Galley Hill skeleton was judged to be of the modern human type (Newton 1895, Keith 1928, Oakley and Montagu 1949). Most scientists now think that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) originated in Africa around 100,000 years ago. They say that Homo sapiens sapiens eventually entered Europe in the form of Cro-Magnon man approximately 30,000 years ago, replacing the Neanderthals (Gowlett 1984, p. 118). Fully modern and found in strata contemporaneous with the Swanscombe site (about 330,000 years b.p.), the Galley Hill skeleton thus presents an anomaly.
Just what do modern paleoanthropologists say about the Galley Hill skeleton? Despite the stratigraphic evidence reported by Heys and Elliott, Oakley and Montagu (1949) concluded that the skeleton must have been recently buried in the Middle Pleistocene deposits. They considered the bones, which were not fossilized, to be only a few thousand years old. This is also the opinion of almost all anthropologists today.
The Galley Hill bones had a nitrogen content similar to that of fairly recent bones from other sites in England. Nitrogen is one of the constituent elements of protein, which normally decays with the passage of time. But there are many recorded cases of proteins being preserved in fossils for millions of years. Because the degree of nitrogen preservation may vary from site to site, one cannot say for certain that the relatively high nitrogen content of the Galley Hill bones means they are recent. The Galley Hill bones were found in clayey sediments known to preserve protein.
Oakley and Montagu (1949) found the Galley Hill human bones had a fluorine content similar to that of Late Pleistocene and Holocene (recent) bones from other sites. It is known that bones absorb fluorine from groundwater. But the fluorine content of groundwater may vary widely from place to place and this makes comparison of fluorine contents of bones from different sites an unreliable indicator of their relative ages.
Later, the British Museum Research Laboratory (Barker and Mackey 1961) obtained a carbon 14 date of 3,310 years for the Galley Hill skeleton. But this test was performed using methods now considered unreliable. Also, it is highly probable that the Galley Hill bones, kept in a museum for 80 years, were contaminated with recent carbon, causing the test to give a falsely young date.
For a more detailed discussion of the above-mentioned tests, see Appendix 1. Although modern paleoanthropologists have great confidence in these tests, there are good reasons for thinking that they are at least as imperfect and subject to error as older methods of dating, such as stratigraphic observation. Thus chemical and radiometric test results do not automatically invalidate stratigraphic observations with which they may be in disagreement.
In attempting to discredit the testimony of Elliott and Heys, who said no signs of burial were evident at Galley Hill, Oakley and Montagu (1949) and Oakley (1980) offered several arguments in addition to their chemical and radiometric tests.
Oakley and Montagu suggested (1949, p. 37) that by the time Elliott and Heys saw the skeleton “it is probable that the bulk of any evidence of burial had already been destroyed by the gravel digger.”
Oakley and Montagu (1949,