Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [67]
The most comprehensive recent study of the Cromer Forest Bed formation is by R. G. West. According to West (1980, p. 201), the oldest part of the Cromer Forest Bed is the Sheringham member. West identified the lower part of the Sheringham member, representing the base of the Cromer Forest Bed, with the Pre-Pastonian cold stage of East Anglia ( Table 2.1, p. 78).
Even after much study, West was not able to give a conclusive date for the Pre-Pastonian. He suggested that the lowest level of the Pre-Pastonian, might be equivalent to the basal part of the northwestern European cold stage called the Erburonian. This would give the Pre-Pastonian cold stage a maximum age of about 1.75 million years (West 1980, fig. 54). But Nilsson (1983, p. 308) puts the base of the Erburonian at 1.5 million years.
According to West (1980, fig. 54), the Pre-Pastonian cold stage of East Anglia might also be identified, on paleomagnetic grounds, with the Menapian glaciation of northwestern Europe at .8–.9 million years. The Pre-Pastonian might also be identified with the early part of the northwestern European Cromer complex, a series of alternating glacials and interglacials extending from about .4 million to .8 million years ago ( West 1980, p. 120; Nilsson 1983, p. 308). The early part of the Cromer complex of glacials and interglacials can be estimated at about .6–.8 million years according to the correlation table of Nilsson (1983, p. 308).
Therefore, according to West, the Cromer Forest Bed series might be as old as 1.75 million years or as young as .6–.8 million years. Nilsson (1983, p. 308) shows the Cromer Forest Bed series beginning at about .8 million years ago.
So if the heavily mineralized bone implement reported by Moir actually did come from the lowest levels of the Cromer Forest Bed, as he surmised, it might be as much as 1.75 million years old. The oldest Homo erectus fossils from Africa only date back about 1.6 million years.
If, however, we take the younger of the possible dates for the oldest levels of the Cromer Forest Bed (about .6 million years) that would still be quite anomalous for England. According to Nilsson (1983, p. 111), the oldest stone tools from England come from Westbury-sub-Mendip deposits equivalent to the terminal phase of the Cromer Forest Bed, at about .4 million years ago.
Of course, Moir could have been wrong about the source of the mineralized bone implement. The beds at Overstrand cover almost the entire span of Cromer Forest Bed time (West 1980, p. 159). Thus the implement from Overstrand might have come not from the earliest but from the latest part of the Cromer Forest Bed sequence, making it the same age as the stone tools from Westbury-sub-Mendip, about .4 million years old—quite within the range of conventional acceptability. This possibility makes it all the more remarkable that the bone tool reported by Moir is not given serious attention by modern paleoanthropologists.
In some additional remarks on the Cromer Forest Bed discoveries, Moir (1927, p. 50) went on to describe incised bones rather than bones modified as tools: “The discovery of flint implements in the Forest Bed induced me to make a close examination of the mammalian bones from this deposit, in the possession of Mr. A. C. Savin of Cromer. This examination revealed three specimens, all found in the peat, representing the upper part of the Forest Bed at West Runton, by Mr. Savin, which show on their surface clearly defined cuts which, I think, can only have been produced by flint knives in removing flesh . . . the Cromer examples are quite comparable with others exhibiting