Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [453]
Boswell suggested that even if the jaw was found in the Early Pleistocene formation at Kanam, it had entered somehow from above—by “slumping” of the strata or through a fissure. To this Leakey (1960d, pp. 202–203) later replied: “I cannot accept this interpretation, for which there is no evidence. The state of preservation of the fossil is in every respect identical to that of the Lower Pleistocene fossils found with it. Had the Kanam mandible been a specimen representing some specialized extinct type of man (such as used to be called ‘primitive’) no one would have suggested that it was not contemporary with the other fossils of the same horizon. . . . the fact that the Kanam mandible has a distinct chin eminence certainly influenced some people against accepting its authenticity.”
Boswell’s preconceptions about the morphology of hominids in the Early Pleistocene apparently motivated his attacks on the age of the Kanam jaw, and of Reck’s skeleton (Section 11.1.4). Leakey (1972, pp. 35–36) said in his memoirs: “he actually told us that were it not for the counterindication provided by the Piltdown jaw, which showed that man in the Lower Pleistocene had a simian shelf and extremely apelike characteristics, he would be inclined to accept the Kanam evidence, since the mineralization of the specimen compared closely with that of other fossils from the same deposits.” Of course, British scientists later declared the Piltdown jaw to be a fake (Chapter 8).
11.2.6 Kanam and Kanjera after Boswell
Despite Boswell’s attacks on the Kanam and Kanjera finds, a few well-known scientists continued to keep open minds about Leakey’s original claims. Robert Broom, who in the 1930s found the first adult specimens of Australopithecus, wrote (1951, p. 13): “I have looked into this controversy very carefully and have no hesitation in saying that I have the fullest confidence in Leakey’s work; I am quite satisfied that Leakey found these remains where he says he found them, and that they prove modern man is far older than a few English scientists had thought—perhaps even as old as the Lowest Pleistocene.” Broom’s use of the words “modern man” to describe the Kanam and Kanjera fossils suggests he regarded them as similar to Homo sapiens sapiens. Broom (1951, pp. 11–12) characterized the Kanjera fossils as “skulls of early man with a large brain, and without any of the characters of Neanderthal man.” Standard texts give a lot of attention to Broom’s Australopithecus finds, but usually fail to mention his unorthodox views on Kanam and Kanjera.
Philip V. Tobias of South Africa said about Kanjera (1968, p. 182): “Boswell did not disprove the claim that human fragments were found in a Middle Pleistocene deposit; he only failed to find additional evidence confirmatory of Leakey’s claim. Thus there is a good prima facie case to re-open the question of Kanjera.”
And the Kanjera case was in fact reopened. Leakey’s biographer Sonia Cole (1975, p. 358) wrote: “In September 1969 Louis attended a conference in Paris sponsored by UNESCO on the theme of the origins of Homo sapiens. . . . the 300 or so delegates unanimously accepted that the Kanjera skulls were Middle Pleistocene.”
Leakey originally suggested that the fossil-bearing formation at Kanjera was equivalent to Olduvai Bed IV, which is approximately 400,000 to 700,000 years old (early to middle Middle Pleistocene). By 1960, however, Leakey had modified his position. He said the Kanjera skulls were the same age as the Swanscombe skull (L. Leakey 1960d, p. 204), which is about 300,000 years old. In the paper Leakey