Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Leakey (1960d, p. 68) then made an important point: “It must be constantly borne in mind that although simple pebble chopping tools without any more elaborate forms are typical of the Kafuan and Oldowan, similar tools continued to be made and used by the makers of much more advanced cultures, just as we ourselves still use candles although we also have electric light.” This observation is essential to understanding lithic remains. There is no reason to suppose that crude stone tools, found in Early Pleistocene or Tertiary beds, must have been made by correspondingly primitive hominids. This is especially true when we consider that examples of much more sophisticated tools, of kinds universally attributed to Homo sapiens, occur in beds of the same Early Pleistocene and Tertiary ages (Chapter 5), as do skeletal remains indistinguishable from those of modern human beings (Chapter 6).

These discoveries are not well known, having been forgotten by science over the course of many decades or in many cases eliminated by a biased process of knowledge filtration. The result is that modern students of paleoanthropology are not in possession of the complete range of scientific evidence concerning human origins and antiquity. Rather most people, including professional scientists, are exposed to only a carefully edited selection of evidence supporting the currently accepted theory that protohuman hominids evolved from apelike predecessors in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, and that modern humans subsequently evolved from the protohuman hominids in the Late Pleistocene, in Africa or elsewhere. This book is intended to supply those concerned with paleoanthropological studies access to the full range of evidence. Objectively reviewed, the totality of evidence, in the form of incised bones (Chapter 2), stone implements (Chapters 3–5), and human skeletal remains (Chapter 6), suggests that the current theory of an African evolution is erroneous. It appears that toolmaking hominids indistinguishable from Homo sapiens sapiens were present in habitable areas all over the planet far back into the Tertiary epoch. This does not, however, rule out the simultaneous presence of more apelike hominids, some of whom may have manufactured some of the most primitive stone implements. In Appendix 2, we catalog selected radical evidence suggesting higher cultural levels in the Tertiary and even earlier.

3.4 Breuil and Barnes: Two Famous Debunkers of Eoliths

In paleoanthropology, we sometimes encounter the definitive debunking report—a report that is repeatedly cited as having decisively invalidated a particular discovery or general category of evidence. In the case of European eoliths, two papers are good examples of definitive debunking reports. These are H. Breuil’s paper claiming that pseudoeoliths were formed by geological pressure in the French Eocene formations at Clermont (Oise), and A. S. Barnes’s paper claiming to demonstrate, by statistical analysis of platform striking angles, the natural origin of Eolithic industries. We shall now review these two papers.

3.4.1 Breuil’s Attempt to End the Eolith Controversy

In 1910, Abbé Henri Breuil conducted investigations he thought would put an end to the eolith controversy. In his often cited report (“Sur La Présence d’Éolithes a la Base de l’Éocene Parisien”), Breuil said that for several years his attention had been drawn to the gravel pits of Belle-Assise, near Clermont, in the department of Oise, northeast of Paris. Excavations there had exposed a bed of chalk, which formed the stratigraphic base for the overlying formations. Above the chalk was a bed of clay containing layers of angular pieces of flint, interspersed with layers of gravel and sand. Above the flint-bearing clay was a very thick deposit of greenish Bracheux sands, which belong to the Thanetian formation, at the base of the Eocene (Obermaier 1924, p. 12). Breuil concluded that the flint-bearing beds below the sands must therefore belong to the very beginning of the Eocene. They would thus be about 50–55 million years old according to modern dating. Some modern authorities put the Thanetian formation as far back as the Late Paleocene, at 55–60 million years (Marshall et al. 1977, p. 1326). Above the Bracheux sands were gravel deposits from the Pliocene and Pleistocene.