Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [288]
The discovery, however, inspired intense opposition. Keith (1928, p. 299) questioned: “if . . . the Ipswich skeleton had shown characters as distinctive as those of Neanderthal man . . . would anyone have doubted its age was older than the deposition of the boulder clay?” Keith (1928, p. 299) answered: “I do not think the age would then have been called into question. But under the presumption that the modern type of man is also modern in origin, a degree of high antiquity is denied to such specimens.”
Keith (1928, p. 299) suggested: “It is, therefore, all the more important that every discovery of human remains, made in circumstances which make their high antiquity a reasonable presumption, should be placed on record, with no fact kept back.” We fully agree with Keith on this point, and indeed, his suggestion has been one of the operating principles governing the compilation of the material in this book. The nature of paleoanthropological evidence is that it is never absolutely conclusive. There is always a chance that new evidence or new methods of analysis might result in a reevaluation of previous discoveries. It is therefore valuable to keep the details of controversial finds readily at hand for future generations of researchers.
Despite opposition, Moir initially stuck to his guns, holding that the Ipswich skeleton was genuinely old. What then happened to change his mind? His own report, published in Nature in 1916, tells the story. Moir (1916, p. 109) conducted further excavations in the area and reported: “These investigations have shown that at about the level at which the skeleton rested the scanty remains of a ‘floor’ are present, and that the few associated flint implements appear to be the same as others found on an old occupation-level in the adjacent valley. This occupation-level is in all probability referable to the early Aurignac period, and it appears that the person whose remains were discovered was buried in this old land surface. The material which has since covered the ancient ‘floor’ may be regarded as a sludge, formed largely of re-made boulder clay, and its deposition was probably associated with a period of low temperatures occurring in postchalky boulder clay times.” The Aurignacian stage in Europe occurred about
30,000 years ago (Gowlett 1984, p. 122) and is identified with Homo sapiens sapiens.
In Moir’s statements we find nothing that compels us to accept a recent age for the skeleton. We know from our discussion of stone tools (Section 3.3.1) that Moir believed in a temporal succession of tool types, the older being more primitive than the recent. In other words, Moir was operating under the influence of an evolutionary preconception. But our own review of stone tools led us to the conclusion that it is not possible to place such implements in a temporal sequence simply on the basis of their degree of sophistication. Modern human beings are known to make very crude stone tool implements, and we have evidence that very sophisticated tools, comparable to those of Aurignacian Europe, turn up all over the world, in very distant times. In the 1960s, such implements were discovered at Hueyatlaco, Mexico, in strata yielding a uranium series age of over 200,000 years (Section 5.4.4). During the nineteenth century, very advanced stone objects turned up in the California gold mines, in gravels that might be as old as the Eocene (Section 5.5). Therefore, we cannot agree with Moir that the discovery of tools of advanced type at the same level as the Ipswich skeleton was sufficient reason to reinterpret the site stratigraphy to bring the age of the skeleton into harmony with the supposed age of the tools.
Moir’s reinterpretation of the boulder clay over the skeleton was not, it appears, based on any compelling geological evidence. In fact, he gave no geological reasons whatsoever in support of his conclusion that the boulder clay was a recently deposited