Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Therefore the assumption that all the specimens shown to Rutot were produced by natural forces is unwarranted. The presence of a few naturally broken flints at Belle-Assise does not rule out the possibility that many others, resembling implements, were in fact made by humans, especially since the latter category display more elaborate patterns of chipping than visible in the few specimens demonstrably broken by geological pressure. It is, therefore, quite possible that Rutot’s judgements about the specimens shown to him by Capitan were entirely correct, and that Breuil had inadvertently been the discoverer of a new Eolithic industry in the Eocene. Worthy of note is the fact that Rutot found signs of utilization on the edges of many of the specimens. The hypothesis that implemental shapes with signs of wear on the appropriate working edges could have been produced by blind natural forces will induce in at least some unprejudiced minds a sense of improbability.

3.4.4 The Role of Preconception in the Treatment of Eolith Evidence

It can thus be seen that Breuil’s main support was simply his unfounded belief that humans or protohumans capable of manufacturing even the crudest stone tools could not have existed in the Eocene. His view was shared by Hugo Obermaier. Many supporters of eoliths have pointed out that modern tribal people, such as the Australian aboriginals, make eolithlike implements. But Obermaier (1924, p. 16) protested: “If, then, from the actual [modern] eoliths we should draw the conclusion that, for the sake of consistency, similar forms from the Tertiary must also be considered as artefacts, we should find ourselves forced to admit the existence of man in Oligocene and perhaps even Eocene times. For these Tertiary products are in no way less ‘human’ than the corresponding modern forms, and must therefore presuppose similar cultural demands. Both Rutot in regard to Boncelles [Section 4.4], and Verworn in regard to Cantal [Section 4.3], urge the point that the flints from these sites—which really do conform most admirably to the human hand—‘appear to have been expressly made for it.’ Well, the same is true of Belle-Assise!” It is obvious that Obermaier, like Breuil, was a prisoner of a belief that humans could not have existed in the Eocene. But this belief appears to have been arrived at independently of the available evidence.

Obermaier, citing the work of Max Schlosser, who studied fossil apes at Fayum in Egypt, further stated: “Viewed from the standpoint of palaeontology all this is untenable. The forms most closely related to the Eocene man of Clermont would be the Pachylemurae [lemurs]! The oldest known fossil anthromorph, the Oligocene Propliopithecus, was probably no larger than a baby. No one can seriously believe [wrote Schlosser] ‘that so small a creature could use such large stones as the eoliths. Neither could this be said of Anthropodus, which certainly did not attain the size of a twelve-year-old child. According to this, the theory of Pliocene eoliths must also be abandoned’” (Schlosser 1911, p. 56; Obermaier 1924, pp. 16–17). It should, however, be kept in mind that these statements were founded upon a carefully edited version of the fossil record that deliberately excluded discoveries of fully human fossil skeletal remains in Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene, and even more ancient strata (Sections 6.2, 6.3). But even taking Obermaier’s statements as they stand, they exhibit a questionable logic. Obermaier should not have absolutely ruled out the existence of humanlike primates in the Tertiary simply because the only primate fossils recovered up till that time were nonhumanlike.

3.4.5 The Double Standard in Operation

Seeing the eolith question from another point of view, Breuil (1910, p. 406) stated: “It is established that the criterion for distinguishing these natural productions from flints truly used by man, or flints rudimentarily worked by him, has not yet been discovered, and probably does not exist.” Many authorities, from the nineteenth century up to the present, would disagree with this observation. The works of Leland W. Patterson (L. Patterson 1983, L. Patterson et al. 1987), outline a combination of criteria (including bulbs of percussion, retouching, striking platform geometry, repetition of particular forms, etc.) for judging human workmanship in even the crudest assemblages. Patterson (1983, p. 303) has stated: “Any experienced lithic analyst with a 10-power magnifier can distinguish fortuitously shaped flakes from unifacial tools.”