Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

As of June 1990, the Anza-Borrego mammoth bones were still under study. Deposits of sandy matrix were being painstakingly removed from the incisions on the bones, so that the incisions could be examined by a scanning electron microscope. Hopefully, inspection of the minute striations on the surfaces of the cuts under high magnification will confirm whether or not they are characteristic of stone tools. Parks (personal communication, June 1, 1990) said that one incision apparently continues from one of the fossil bones to another bone that would have been located next to it when the mammoth skeleton was articulated. This is suggestive of a butchering mark. Accidental marks resulting from movement of the bones in the earth after the skeleton had broken up probably would not continue from one bone to another in this fashion.

The lesson to be learned from the marked bones found at Old Crow River and in the Anza-Borrego Desert is this: the marked bones of St. Prest and others like them discovered in the nineteenth century should be kept in the active file of paleoanthropological evidence. Even today, scientists are not always able to immediately determine whether or not marks on bones were made by natural forces, animals, or humans. Much careful study and analysis is required to arrive at a conclusion, and even then not all experts will agree. Therefore the marked bones discussed in this chapter and the reports about them should be seriously examined, and be available for reexamination. If fossils do not pass the test of a certain investigator or school of investigators at a particular point in time, they should not be cast into the outer darkness, so that later researchers will not even know they exist. Rather they should be placed in a category of disputed evidence. In that way, in the event of improvements in the methods of analysis or changes in theoretical constructs of human prehistory, the evidence will be available for further study. Who knows? In the future, new pieces to the puzzle of human origins may give new meaning to old pieces that previously did not quite fit.

2.4 Val D’arno, Italy (early Pleistocene or late Pliocene)

Specimens incised in a manner similar to those of St. Prest were found by Desnoyers in a collection of bones gathered from the valley of the Arno River (Val d’Arno) in Italy. The grooved bones were from the same types of animals found at St. Prest—including Elephas meridionalis and Rhinoceros etruscus. They were attributed to the Late Pliocene stage called the Astian (de Mortillet 1883, p. 47). This would yield a date of 2.0–2.5 million years. Some authorities (Harland et al. 1982, p. 110) put the Astian in the Middle Pliocene, at 3– 4 million years ago.

Modern scientists divide the fauna from the Val d’Arno into two groups— the Upper Valdarno and Lower Valdarno. The Upper Valdarno is assigned to the Late Villafranchian, which is given a quantitative date of 1.0–1.7 million years (Nilsson 1983, pp. 308–309). The Lower Valdarno is placed in the Early Villafranchian, or Late Pliocene, at around 2.0–2.5 million years ago (Nilsson 1983, pp. 308–309).

It is not clear to which group the incised bones reported by Desnoyers belong. But the fact that de Mortillet referred them to the Astian stage of the Late Pliocene seems to indicate that they might be assigned to the Lower Valdarno. On faunal grounds this would not be out of the question. We know that Elephas meridionalis occurs in the Lower Valdarno (Maglio 1973, p. 56). As mentioned in our discussion of St. Prest, Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus) etruscus is reported in the Late Pliocene (Nilsson 1983, p. 475) in Europe, and even as far back as the Early Pliocene (Savage and Russell 1983, p. 339). De Mortillet listed Equus arnensis as present at Val d’Arno. Equus is typical of Pleistocene faunal assemblages, but examples of Equus are known from the Early Villafranchian (Kurtén 1968, p. 147), which is generally thought to extend into the Late Pliocene.

2.5 San Giovanni, Italy (late Pliocene)

In addition, grooved bones also were discovered in other parts of Italy. On September 20, 1865, at the meeting of the Italian Society of Natural Sciences at Spezzia, Professor Ramorino presented bones of extinct species of red deer and rhinoceros bearing what he believed were human incisions (de Mortillet 1883, pp. 47–48). These specimens were found at San Giovanni, in the vicinity of Siena, and like the Val d’Arno bones were said to be from the Astian stage of the Pliocene period. De Mortillet (1883, p. 48), not deviating from his standard negative opinion, stated that he thought the marks were most probably made by the tools of the workers who extracted the bones.

2.6 Rhinoceros of Billy, France (Middle Miocene)