Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

First let us consider the implements discovered by Benjamin Harrison on the Kent Plateau. For the sake of the discussion that follows, let us set aside all the evidence for stone tool industries in the Miocene and earlier geological periods (see for example, Sections 4.1–4, 4.7, 5.5), and let us consider just the Kent Plateau implements. The reasoning behind this approach is as follows. If we take seriously the evidence for the presence of toolmaking beings in Europe during the Miocene period, then the whole story of human evolution currently accepted, with the Homo line originating in Africa and migrating to Europe and Asia during the Early Pleistocene, must be completely wrong. For the present, we just want to consider why the Eolithic implements of England, by themselves, present problems for advocates of the currently accepted doctrines of human evolution.

We have seen that the eoliths of the Kent Plateau may be referred to the Pliocene period in England. The end of the Pliocene is generally placed at about 2 million years ago, although some place it at about 1.6 million years ago (Gowlett 1984, p. 200). Hugo Obermaier, one of the important scientists working in the field of paleoanthropology during the early twentieth century, wrote of “the eoliths from the chalk plateau of Kent in southern England, which belong to the Middle Pliocene” (1924, p. 8).

A Middle Pliocene date would make the eoliths of Kent 3–4 million years old. Most paleoanthropologists now put the origin of Homo sapiens of the fully modern type (technically known as Homo sapiens sapiens) at a maximum of 100,000 years before the present. The immediate forerunner of Homo sapiens sapiens, technically known as archaic Homo sapiens or early Homo sapiens, would date back only 200,000–300,000 years. Homo erectus, the supposed ancestor of early Homo sapiens, dates back roughly 1.5 million years in Africa (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 283), and Homo habilis, the supposed ancestor of Homo erectus, dates back only 2 million years. According to the standard account, the hominids of the Late and Middle Pliocene would have been very primitive australopithecines, none of which are thought to have been makers of stone tools.

Just for the sake of argument, let us suppose that the eoliths of the Kent Plateau can be referred to the very latest Pliocene, at about 2 million years b.p. This is, of course, too early for Homo sapiens. It is also too early for Homo erectus. Even if we push the first appearance of Homo erectus back further than 1.5 million years, the 2-million-year minimum age for the Eolithic implements of the Kent Plateau still causes some problems. According to the most widely accepted scenario of human evolution, Homo erectus was the first hominid to leave Africa, and did not do so any earlier than about a million years ago. Thus even an Early Pleistocene date for the Harrison implements from the Kent Plateau would be problematic.

Up to now, we have been speaking of the standard evolutionary account of human origins, with the major transitions taking place in Africa. But there is a second, less widely held version of the human evolutionary process. According to this account, the transition to Homo erectus and Homo sapiens took place not in Africa alone but across a wider geographical range (Gowlett 1984). This means that the precursors of Homo erectus, creatures like Homo habilis, must have already been existing outside Africa, perhaps as much as 2 million years ago. According to some scientists, Homo habilis made the very primitive stone tools found in the lower levels of Olduvai Gorge, tools very much like eoliths. It is therefore within the realm of theoretical possibility (for some paleoanthropologists) that a creature like Homo habilis may have made the eoliths found by Benjamin Harrison in England.

One would thus have to make relatively few changes in current theory to accommodate the Harrison eoliths. But once such evidence has been condemned, it must apparently remain so perpetually, with no chance of rehabilitation. Even scientists whose theories the tainted evidence might support ignore it. Why? Perhaps because if some relatively benign evidence of this kind were to be resurrected, then more threatening evidence might also emerge from the crypt.

3.6.2 East Anglian Tools and the African Origins Hypothesis