Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [286]
De Mortillet was convinced by the workman’s report, but the facts the workman reported can be interpreted differently. The workman suggested that the layer in which Bertrand said he found the bones was too thin to have colored them. But according to the workman, the maximum depth of the layer in question was 8 inches, which seems enough to have accommodated the fragmentary skeletal remains reported by Bertrand.
The workman’s objection that it was unprecedented for several bones of the same creature to be found together in the lower layers of the quarry is of questionable significance. Eugene Bertrand (1868) said that he had evidence, which he planned to show to the Anthropological Society, that it was common for bones of the same animal to be found together in the lower layers as well as the upper layers.
Even after hearing de Mortillet relate the workman’s story about stashing the bones of the Clichy skeleton, a number of scientists remained convinced Bertrand’s discovery was genuine. For example, Professor Hamy (Bertrand 1868, p. 335) said: “Mr. Bertrand’s discovery seems to me to be so much less debatable in that it is not the first of this kind at Avenue de Clichy. Indeed, our esteemed colleague, Mr. Reboux, found in that same locality, and almost at the same depth (4.20 meters), human bones that he has given me to study.”
Hamy was not alone in accepting the Clichy find. Keith (1928, p. 276) reported that almost all authorities in France believed that the Clichy skeleton was as old as the layer in which Bertrand said it was found. Keith mentioned, however, that later on, after accepting the Neanderthals as the Pleistocene ancestors of modern humans, French anthropologists dropped the Clichy skeleton, which predated the Neanderthals, from the list of bona fide discoveries. A representative of the modern human type should not have been existing before his supposed ancestors. The Neanderthals are thought to have existed from 30,000 to 150,000 years ago. If the Clichy skeleton is about the same age as the Swanscombe skull, as suggested by Keith, it would be over 300,000 years old.
In his remarks to the Anthropological Society, Bertrand provided additional evidence for the great antiquity of the Clichy skeleton. He stated that he found a human cubitus, or ulna, in the stratum containing the other bones of the Clichy human skeleton. The ulna, the larger of the two long bones of the forearm, is located on the side opposite the thumb. When Bertrand tried to extract the ulna it crumbled into dust. He offered this as proof that the Clichy human skeleton must have been native to the layer in which it was found. Apparently, Bertrand reasoned that a bone as fragile as the decayed ulna could not possibly have been removed from an upper layer of the quarry and inserted into the lower layer in which he found it—it would certainly have been destroyed in the process. This indicated that the ulna belonged to the stratum in which Bertrand found it, as did the other human bones.
So in the case of the Clichy site, we have testimony indicating a recent age for the human skeleton found there, but at the same time there are good arguments that it was Middle Pleistocene.
6.1.2.4 La Denise, France
In the 1840s, pieces of human bone were discovered in the midst of volcanic strata at La Denise, France. Of particular interest was the frontal of a human skull. Keith (1928, p. 279) stated that the frontal “differs in no essential particular from the frontal bone of a modern skull.”
The frontal was reported to have been taken from a limonite bed of considerable age. De Mortillet (1883, p. 241) wrote: “That the human frontal bone, now in the collection of M. Pichot, was in fact from the bed of argillaceous [clayey] limonite is perfectly established by deep incrustations of limonite on the interior of the bone.”
In 1926, the French researcher C. Deperet reported to the French Academy of Science on the stratigraphy at La Denise. Deperet