Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

9.2.9 Summary of Overlapping Date Ranges

In discussing overlapping possible date ranges, we found that Beijing man Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian Locality 1 may very well have lived at the same time as a variety of hominids—early Homo sapiens (some with Neanderthaloid features), Homo sapiens sapiens, and primitive Homo erectus (Figure 9.7).

Figure 9.7. The probable date ranges of Chinese hominids, as determined by their accompanying mammalian faunas, are shown. Scientists have assigned dates to the hominids, within their probable date ranges, that conform to evolutionary expectations. These dates are represented by the darker portion of each bar. For example, although the faunal date range for the Maba site extends from the Early Pleistocene to the early Late Pleistocene, scientists have used the presence of a Neanderthaloid skull to fix the date for the site in the most recent part of its date range. At Liujiang, the human fossils were given a date completely outside the faunal date range. We call this phenomenon morphological dating. But putting aside evolutionary expectations, the faunal evidence indicates that it is possible that all of the hominids were contemporary with Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian Locality 1 in the middle Middle Pleistocene (shaded vertical bar).

In attempting to sort out this Middle Pleistocene hominid logjam, scientists have repeatedly used the morphology of the hominid fossils to select desirable dates within the total possible faunal date ranges of the sites. In this way, they have been able to preserve an evolutionary progression of hominids. Remarkably, this artificially constructed sequence, designed to fit evolutionary expectations, is then cited as proof of the evolutionary hypothesis.

For example, as we have several times demonstrated, a Homo sapiens specimen with a possible date range extending from the middle Middle Pleistocene (contemporary with Beijing man) to the Late Pleistocene will be pushed toward the more recent end of the date range. One would be equally justified in selecting a middle Middle Pleistocene date within the possible date range, even though this conflicts with evolutionary expectations.

9.2.10 Stone Tools and Hominid Teeth at Yuanmou (Early Early Pleistocene)

We conclude our review of fossil hominid discoveries in China with some cases of sites regarded as Early Pleistocene. At Yuanmou, in Yunnan province, southwest China, geologists found two hominid teeth (incisors). According to Chinese scientists, these were more primitive than those of Beijing man, having a more complicated lingual surface (the lingual surface is that facing the tongue). The teeth are believed to have belonged to a very primitive Homo erectus, a precursor of Beijing man, descended from Australopithecus (Jia 1980, pp. 6–7).

Stone tools—three scrapers, a stone core, a flake, and a point of quartz or quartzite—were later found at Yuanmou. Published drawings (Zhang, S. 1985, p. 141) show the Yuanmou tools to be much like the European eoliths and the Oldowan industry of East Africa. Layers of cinders, containing mammalian fossils, were also found with the tools and hominid incisors. According to Jia (1980, p. 8), “The cinders were in heaps at some spots while sparse and scattered elsewhere.” The strata yielding the incisors gave a probable paleomagnetic date of

1.7 million years within a range of 1.6–1.8 million years (Jia 1980, p. 9).