Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [61]
On the general subject of cut bones as a category of viable evidence, Laing (1894, pp. 353–354) wrote in his book Human Origins, which went through five reprintings: “cut bones afford one of the most certain tests of the presence of man. The bones tell their own tale, and their geological age can be certainly identified. Sharp cuts could only be made on them while the bones were fresh, and the state of fossilization, and presence of dendrites or minute crystals alike on the side of the cuts and on the bone, negate any idea of forgery. The cuts can be compared with thousands of undoubted human cuts on bones from the reindeer and other later periods, and with cuts now made with old flint knives on fresh bones. All these tests have been applied by some of the best anthropologists of the day, who have made a special study of the subject, and who have shown their caution and good faith by rejecting numerous specimens which did not fully meet the most rigorous requirements. . . . The only possible alternative suggested is, that they might have been made by gnawing animals or fishes. But as Quatrefages observes, even an ordinary carpenter would have no difficulty in distinguishing between a clean cut made by a sharp knife, and a groove cut by repeated strokes of a narrow chisel; and how much more would it be impossible for a Professor trained to scientific investigation, and armed with a microscope, to mistake a groove gnawed out by a shark or rodent for a cut made by a flint knife.”
Laing’s observations are significant in that they counter certain modern prejudices about the caliber of scientific work at that time. On first encountering reports like those concerning the cut bones of St. Prest, Monte Aperto, or Pouancé, one might think something like this: “How quaint these nineteenth-century scientists were, in those old days of the infancy of paleoanthropological investigation. How quick they were to accept questionable evidence upon cursory inspection.” But from Laing’s statements we can see that scientists like de Quatrefages, Desnoyers, and Capellini were carefully applying standards of investigation and evaluation comparable to those of the present day. In particular, they displayed a considerable grasp of the principles of the modern discipline of taphonomy. One might also postulate something like the following: “Well, perhaps in the nineteenth century, before there were many actual human fossils uncovered, these naturalists focused undue attention on these cut bones, reading too much into them, because they had nothing else to concern themselves with.” But even today, many researchers are investigating the presence of humans at certain sites solely on the basis of animal bones bearing signs of intentional workmanship. And, as we shall see in coming chapters, it is not true that nineteenth-century naturalists interested in human antiquity had nothing but cut bones to study. They also extensively investigated many finds of stone tools and human skeletal remains that have since slipped into near total obscurity.
2.13 San Valentino, Italy (Late Pliocene)
In 1876, at a meeting of the Geological Committee of Italy, M. A. Ferretti showed a fossil animal bone bearing “traces of work of the hand of man, so evident as to exclude all doubt to the contrary” (de Mortillet 1883, p. 73). This bone, of elephant or rhinoceros, was found firmly in place in Astian ( Late Pliocene) strata in San Valentino ( Reggio d’Emilie), Italy. The bone’s dimensions are 70 mm (2.8 inches) by 40 mm (1.6 inches). Of special interest is the fact that the fossil bone has an almost perfectly