Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [49]
Hughes then offered another curious objection. He observed that the same types of perforation are found on fossils not only in the Crag, a formation on the Plio-Pleistocene boundary, but also on shells in other deposits more ancient, such as the green sandstone strata of Secondary age. He asserted that it was clearly impossible for humans to have existed at this remote time; therefore the perforations in fossils in the green sandstone were clearly natural in origin. And, by analogy, so were the perforations in the shark teeth from the Red Crag. Here is yet another very typical example of preconceptions determining what kind of evidence for human antiquity can be accepted. Another possible way to look at the perforated shells found in the older green sandstone strata is that they also could be the result of the action of human beings. As previously mentioned, the most recent Secondary period is the Cretaceous, which ended about 65 million years ago.
In any case, Hughes suggested that the perforations in the Red Crag shark teeth were caused by a combination of wear, decay, and parasites (Charlesworth 1873, p. 93). Mr. G. Busk presented the same conclusion at the 1872 meeting of the International Congress of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology in Brussels. In Le Préhistorique, de Mortillet (1883, p. 68) sarcastically remarked that it was really curious how some people searched so obstinately for proof of the existence of Tertiary humans in marine deposits.
But in looking at the arguments presented in this case, both those in favor of human work and those opposed, it would seem that obstinacy is more clearly evident in those who refused to accept the possibility of human action. What are the alternatives that were presented? Some suggested tooth decay, although sharks are not known to have cavities; others suggested parasites, although one of Britain’s leading experts admitted there was no known instance of a parasite inhabiting the teeth of fish or sharks. Others suggested wear had a role to play, though one would be hard pressed to find examples in nature of wear causing clean round holes through the centers of teeth.
2.10 Carved Bone from the Dardanelles, Turkey (Miocene)
In the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Frank Calvert (1874, p. 127) reported: “I have had the good fortune to discover, in the vicinity of the Dardanelles, conclusive proofs of the existence of man during the Miocene period of the tertiary age. From the face of a cliff composed of strata of that period, at a geological depth of eight hundred feet, I have extracted a fragment of the joint of a bone of either a dinotherium [Deinotherium] or a mastodon, on the convex side of which is deeply incised the unmistakable figure of a horned quadruped, with arched neck, lozenge-shaped chest, long body, straight fore-legs, and broad feet. There are also traces of seven or eight other figures which, together with the hind quarters of the first, are nearly obliterated. The whole design encircles the exterior portion of the fragment, which measures nine inches in diameter and five in thickness. I have found in different parts of the same cliff, not far from the site of the engraved bone, a flint flake and some bones of animals, fractured longitudinally, obviously by the hand of man for the purpose of extracting the marrow, according to the practice of all primitive races.”
Calvert (1874, p. 127) added: “There can be no doubt as to the geological character of the formation from which I disinterred these interesting relics. The well known writer on the geology of Asia Minor, M. de Tchihatcheff, who visited this region, determined it to be of the miocene period; and the fact is further confirmed by the fossil bones, teeth, and shells