Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [310]
The discovery appears quite significant—human fossil remains found in the Chapadmalalan—a formation which Anderson (1984, p. 41) gave an age of 2.5–3.0 million years and which Marshall et al. (1982, p. 1352) gave an age of 2.0–3.0 million years.
Boman, however, treated this evidence in a manner typical of those sharing his views. He stated: “The newspapers published bombastic articles about ‘the most ancient human remains in the world.’ But all who examined the molars found them to be identical to the corresponding molars of modern human beings. Human beings existing at that time would have been contemporary with their ‘precursor,’ the mysterious Tetraprothomo” (Boman 1921, pp. 341–342). In the opinion of Florentino Ameghino, Tetraprothomo was a primitive apelike ancestor of anatomically modern humans, which he thought evolved in South America.
Boman took it for granted that the fully human nature of the Miramar jaw fragment unequivocally insured its recent date. But nothing Boman said excludes the possibility that the Miramar fossil demonstrates a fully human presence in the Pliocene of Argentina.
Boman mockingly suggested that the Miramar jaw fragment, if one could imagine it was genuinely old, would contradict Florentino Ameghino’s theory that human beings evolved from apelike ancestors in Argentina, a theory Boman regarded as fanciful. But Boman neglected the possibility that the discovery of a fully human jaw in the Chapadmalalan formation might contradict his own views, and those of others, who believed that Homo sapiens evolved quite recently. The presence of Homo sapiens 2–3 million years ago in Argentina would have invalidated the entire story of human evolution then, and now, accepted as fact.
6.2.6 Human skeletal remains from the California Gold country (Pliocene to Eocene)
In the preceding chapter (Section 5.5), we discussed the numerous stone implements discovered in the auriferous gravels of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Some of these implements were found beneath the latite cap of Table Mountain in Tuolumne County. We noted that this latite cap has yielded radiometric dates of 9 million years, while the prevolcanic auriferous gravels lying just above the bedrock have yielded dates of 33–55 million years. Now we will describe human skeletal remains that have been discovered beneath the latite cap of Tuolumne Table Mountain, and elsewhere in California. We will begin our review with the Calaveras skull, the history of which is colorful but inconclusive. The accounts of the remaining discoveries, although less entertaining, provide better evidence for a human presence in the Tertiary.
6.2.6.1 The Calaveras Skull
The most notorious fossil discovered in the Gold Rush mines of California was the Calaveras skull. The State Geologist of California, J. D. Whitney (1880, pp. 267–273), described the circumstances surrounding this find.
In February 1866, Mr. Mattison, the principal owner of the mine on Bald Hill, near Angels Creek, removed this skull from a layer of gravel 130 feet below the surface. The gravel was near the bedrock, underneath several distinct layers of volcanic material. Volcanic eruptions began in this region during the Oligocene, continued through the Miocene, and ended in the Pliocene (Clark 1979, p. 147).
Since the skull occurred near the bottom of the sequence of interspersed gravel and lava layers at Bald Hill, it would seem likely that the gravel in which the skull was found was older than the Pliocene, perhaps much older.
After finding the skull, Mattison later carried it to Mr. Scribner, an agent of Wells, Fargo and Co.