Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Those who have staked their prestige on the slogan “evolution is a fact not a theory” might counter that the evidence for evolution in general is “overwhelming.” There are, of course, millions of species that might be considered, but here we are focusing on one, the human species, and testing the hypothesis of its evolutionary origin. In this defined area of investigation, we have documented overwhelming evidence contradicting the proposal that the modern human type evolved from more apelike predecessors. Trying to avoid the implications of this thought-provoking evidence by bringing in ex cathedra claims of evolutionary progressions in the fossil histories of myriad other species is inappropriate.

3.6.3 Recent Pakistan Finds (Plio-Pleistocene Boundary)

Resistance to the idea that representatives of the Homo line may have been present outside Africa around 2 million years ago is apparent in reactions to some recent discoveries in Pakistan. These were reported in a New York Times News Service story appearing in the San Diego Union edition of August 30, 1987. The story told of “reports from British archaeologists working in northern Pakistan that they have found 2-million-year-old chopping tools believed to have been made by early humans.” The reports were from the British journal New Scientist. The news article continued: “If such a significantly earlier time of migration is established, it would presumably mean that a more primitive species in the human lineage, Homo habilis, was the first to leave Africa and did so soon after learning to make stone tools. The prevailing view now is that the later Homo erectus, which had a considerably larger brain capacity, initiated the human migration about a million years ago.” To those accepting the prevailing view, the English eoliths, discovered in the nineteenth century, and the new Pakistani stone tools, both at least 2 million years old, present a problem.

The article went on to explain how mainstream scientists considering the Pakistan tools dealt with this problem—they tried to discredit the discovery. “Sally McBrearty, an anthropologist at William and Mary College who has done research in Pakistan, complains that the discoverers ‘have not supplied enough evidence that the specimens are that old and that they are of human manufacture.’” Our review of anomalous stone implements should make us suspicious of this sort of claim. As we have seen, it is fairly typical procedure for scientists to demand higher levels of proof for anomalous finds than for evidence that fits within the established ideas about human evolution.

The New York Times News Service article then stated: “Like many experts, McBrearty was skeptical of the 2-million-year date because the discovery was made in a river plain, which is ‘not a good stratigraphical context.’ The sediment layers there have been so mixed up by flowing water over time that geologists have a hard time determining whether artifacts are embedded in their original sediments.” As previously noted, if this standard were to be applied uniformly, then there should be similar skepticism regarding many important paleoanthropological finds, which were also made in river plains and other places, such as caves, with poor stratigraphy. One good example is the famous Java man, the first bones of which were taken from a flood plain directly on the edge of a river.

Finally, the news service article stated: “Anthropologists also noted that pebbles fracture easily as they roll through flowing water, resulting in shapes that can be mistaken for artifacts.” Do these anthropologists think that the British scientists who discovered the implements in Pakistan were unaware of this problem, which has been the object of serious study for over a century? As we have seen earlier in this chapter (Sections 3.2.3, 3.2.5, and 3.2.11), authorities ranging from Sir John Prestwich (1892, p. 256; 1895, and p. 625) to Leland W. Patterson (1983, p. 108) have pointed out that fortuitous damage to stones in stream beds can be clearly distinguished from intentional human work.

Now let us look at the report on the discovery of the Pakistani tools published in New Scientist, and see how it matches up with the newspaper statements of scientists critical of the find. In the New York Times New Service story, Sally McBrearty strongly suggested that the reported 2-million-year date for the Pakistani implements was very uncertain, but New Scientist stated: “These artefacts are surprisingly old, but the date is convincing” (Bunney 1987, p. 36). McBrearty also claimed that the stratigraphic context was not good, hinting that if the objects were tools, they did not belong to the beds where they were found.