Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

It is quite remarkable that Breuil should have included two technologically sophisticated specimens, of Late Paleolithic type, in his report without recognizing they were sufficient to demolish his entire argument. He skipped right over them, apparently genuinely unaware of their significance. But objects exactly resembling implements of the Late Paleolithic type, especially when found in an undisputed Eocene stratum, should not be skipped over. We can only request the reader to carefully consider what damage the demonstrated presence of toolmaking human beings over 50 million years ago in France would do to all current evolutionary explanations of human origins and antiquity.

Of course, one can always insist that the two remarkable objects reported by Breuil were products of nature. In that case, one could dismiss any stone tools, including conventionally accepted Late Pleistocene tools, for the same reason.

3.4.3 An Attempt to Trap Rutot

After describing the finds he had made at Clermont, France, Breuil launched an attack on the Belgian scientist A. Rutot, who had found a series of crude stone tool industries during the first decade of the twentieth century (Section 4.4). Breuil (1910, pp. 404–406) wrote: “Is it possible to distinguish the real eoliths from those produced by nature? We have read, from the pen of Mr. Rutot [1906], that ‘the recognition and appreciation of eoliths is not simple or elementary, as many persons believe. . . . It can be in certain cases very difficult to distinguish a pseudoeolith from a real one, just as the task of determining the difference between the closely related Cerithes and Pleurotomes is not easy to accomplish at first glance.’ If Mr. Rutot were confronted with our flints from Belle-Assise, would he judge them the work of an intelligent being, or simply curious and troubling pseudomorphs? Shown by Mr. Capitan a choice selection of our best specimens, Mr. Rutot, in the absence of information about their stratigraphic position, was willing to formulate his judgement. He considered them to be so well fashioned as to belong to the transition from the Eolithic to the Paleolithic, the Strepyan, according to his system, the primitive Chellean in French usage. According to Rutot, certain specimens ‘bear rudimentary traces of intentional work, as might be found in trial attempts.’ In others ‘the intentional work is of a much better character.’Another ‘has been utilized as a scraper, of which it has the character.’ Another long piece ‘bears on its end attempts at work, for making a dagger or piercer.’ Another is ‘a very good racloir [side scraper], very well worn from use and retouched.’ Another is ‘a very good grattoir [end scraper], equally well worn from use and retouched.’ Finally there is a very good ‘throwing stone.’ Mr. Rutot considers the morphology of the flints of Belle-Assise as characteristic of intentional work, surpassing the simple retouching of natural flakes found in eoliths, and marking the appearance of real intentional manufacture of definite tool types in the dawn of the Paleolithic. Shown the series collected by Mr. Commont, from both Belle-Assise and Picardy, Rutot gave the same diagnosis, though honestly acknowledging he had trouble with the Eocene age of such objects.”

If one accepts Breuil’s explanation that all of the specimens from BelleAssise were formed by geological pressures, as demonstrated by a few examples of crudely chipped flakes found in contact with parent blocks of flint, then, of course, Rutot comes off very badly. One can only conclude that the unwitting Belgian geologist foolishly accepted naturally flaked flints as objects of human manufacture. But, as we have shown, Breuil’s attempted explanation does not adequately account for all of the implementlike objects found in the early Eocene beds at Belle-Assise and elsewhere. Breuil (1910, p. 287) wrote: “Although parts of broken blocks of flint are frequently found still lying in close connection, this is not the rule, and one does not often find such cases, especially in the sand which is less compacted.” It would thus appear that examples of flakes lying next to their parent blocks (Figures 3.20, 3.21) were not all that numerous. Furthermore, the flakes found in contact with the parent blocks did not very closely resemble the many other specimens that Breuil called “pseudotools” (Figures 3.22, 3.23). In particular, the flakes in contact with parent blocks did not at all resemble the two Late Paleolithic type implements found at Belle-Assise (Figures 3.24, 3.25).