Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

The type of human known as Cro-Magnon appeared in Europe approximately 30,000 years ago (Gowlett 1984, p. 118), and they were anatomically modern. scientists used to say that anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens first appeared around 40,000 years ago, but now many authorities, in light of the Border cave discoveries in south Africa, say that they appeared around 100,000 years ago (Rightmire 1984, pp. 320–321).

The cranial capacity of modern humans varies from 1,000 cc to 2,000 cc, the average being around 1,350 cc. As can be readily observed today among modern humans, there is no correlation between brain size and intelligence. There are highly intelligent people with 1,000 cc brains and morons with 2,000 cc brains. exactly where, when, or how Australopithecus gave rise to Homo habilis,

or Homo habilis gave rise to Homo erectus, or Homo erectus gave rise to modern humans is not explained in present accounts of human origins. However, one thing paleoanthropologists do say is that only anatomically modern humans came to the new World. The earlier stages of evolution, from Australopithecus on up, are all said to have taken place in the Old World. The first arrival of human beings in the new World is generally said to have occurred some 12,000 years ago, with some scientists willing to grant a Late Pleistocene date of 25,000 years.

Even today there are many gaps in the presumed record of human descent. For example, there is an almost total absence of fossils linking the Miocene apes with the Pliocene ancestors of modern apes and ancestral humans, especially within the span of time between 4 and 8 million years ago.

Perhaps it is true that fossils will someday be found that fill in the gaps. Yet, and this is extremely important, there is no reason to suppose that the fossils that turn up will be supportive of evolutionary theory. What if, for example, fossils of anatomically modern humans turned up in strata older than those in which the dryopithecine apes were found? Even if anatomically modern humans were found to have lived contemporaneously with Dryopithecus (or even a million years ago, 4 million years after the late Miocene disappearance of Dryopithecus), that would be enough to throw the current accounts of the origin of humankind completely out the window.

In fact, such evidence has already been found, but it has since been suppressed or conveniently forgotten. Much of it came to light immediately after Darwin published The Origin of Species, before which there had been no notable finds except Neanderthal man. In the first years of Darwinism, there was no clearly established story of human descent to be defended, and professional scientists made and reported many discoveries that now would never make it into the pages of any journal more academically respectable than the National Enquirer. Most of these fossils and artifacts were unearthed before the discovery by Eugene Dubois of Java man, the first protohuman hominid between Dryopithecus and modern humans.

Java man was found in Middle Pleistocene deposits generally given an age of 800,000 years. The discovery became a benchmark. Henceforth, scientists would not expect to find fossils or artifacts of anatomically modern humans in deposits of equal or greater age. If they did, they (or someone wiser) concluded that this was impossible and found some way to discredit the find as a mistake, an illusion, or a hoax. Before Java man, however, reputable nineteenth-century scientists found a number of examples of anatomically modern human skeletal remains in very ancient strata. And they also found large numbers of stone tools of various types, as well as animal bones bearing signs of human action.

1.9 Some Principles of Epistemology

Before beginning our survey of rejected and accepted paleoanthropological evidence, we shall outline a few epistemological rules that we have tried to follow. Epistemology is defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary (1978) as “the study or theory of the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge.” When engaged in the study of scientific evidence, it is important to keep the “nature, methods, and limits of knowledge” in mind; otherwise one is prone to fall into a number of illusions.