Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [91]
Ray E. Lankester, who was a director of the British Museum (Natural History), became a supporter of Harrison’s Kent Plateau eoliths. On April 15, 1904, Lankester wrote to Harrison: “Good health and happiness to you— courageous and indomitable discoverer of pre-paleolithic man” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 271). Sir Edward R. Harrison stated: “Professor Ray Lankester, who expressed publicly his belief that the eoliths were artificial, and in the Romanes lecture in Oxford, in 1905, declared that they carried ‘the antiquity of man at least as far back beyond the paleoliths as these are from the present day’, desired to emphasize the value, as evidence of purpose, of similarity of shape of certain eoliths, and wrote to Harrison for specimens to illustrate a book that he had in course of preparation. He was impressed by the large number of implements with a ‘tooth-like prominence rendering the flint fit for use as a “borer”’ and also by a group he called trinacrial, from their resemblance in shape to the island of Sicily” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 270). In his presidential address to the British Association in 1906, Lankester affirmed his belief in “the human authorship” of Harrison’s eoliths (E. Harrison
1928, p. 270).
As time passed, Benjamin Harrison continued to win more and more converts. Sir Edward R. Harrison (1928, pp. 287–288) wrote: “A visit from Professor Max Verworn of Göttingen, who had come to England in connexion with the centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, gave Harrison great pleasure. Professor Verworn, who stated that he did not at first believe in eoliths or in any of the supposed evidence of Tertiary man, but had modified his views after personal investigation of the Miocene deposits of the Cantal [Section 4.3.3], spent five days at Ightham. The fullest use was made of the time available, both in Harrison’s museum and in the field. Professor Verworn found an interesting old paleolith in situ in the Plateau gravel at the Vigo, an implement that from its position near the crest of the Chalk escarpment, and its rolled condition, could only have come from the vanished Wealden hills. . . . Harrison could not have wished for a more striking discovery to have been made by his visitor in order to satisfy him of the great antiquity of man in Kent.” If Sir Edward Harrison is using the word paleolith in its then accepted sense, we have here an account of an implement more technically advanced than the Eolithic type being found in the very old gravels of the Plateau, and having the worn appearance of implements belonging to those gravels. This gives added support to the possibility that humans of the modern type may have existed in later Tertiary times in England, perhaps 2– 4 million years ago.
On July 25, 1909, Professor Verworn wrote to Harrison from Göttingen: “If up to then I had the slightest doubt of the artificial nature of the eoliths of Kent, my visit on the spot and your splendid collection would have quite converted me” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 288).
3.2.14 More Opposition
The controversy over the eoliths continued well into the twentieth century. On April 28, 1911, Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock) wrote to Harrison: “I am satisfied that many, if not most of your eoliths are worked, though the numbers are staggering. I am not satisfied, however, that palaeolithic implements are in all cases younger” (E. Harrison 1928, pp. 294–295). In his last edition of his book Prehistoric Times, Lord Avebury fully accepted the eoliths of Harrison, as well as the implements of J. Reid Moir, which we shall discuss in the next section of this chapter ( E. Harrison 1928, p. 305). The opposition, however, continued to criticize the eoliths. In 1911, F. N. Haward published a paper purporting to show that natural forces were able to chip flints in a way that gives the impression of human work. We shall discuss Haward’s objections in connection with the flint implements of J. Reid Moir.
At this point, one may question the necessity of giving such