Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Such evidence makes possible another explanation for erectus-like fossils found on the surface of Middle Pleistocene formations, in Java and elsewhere. As far as Java is concerned, perhaps as little as 10,000 years ago, a Sedapalike creature died by a stream bed or lake shore, and its bones became fossilized in the sediments. In very recent times, a piece of the fragmented skull reappeared on the surface, where it was discovered by native collectors, who turned it over to a paleoanthropologist. Upon seeing its primitive erectus-like morphology, the paleoanthropologist assigned it to the Middle Pleistocene, giving it a date of 800,000 years or more. The fossil was then described in textbooks and cited as more proof for the hypothesis that modern human beings evolved over the past several hundred thousand years from more apelike ancestors. But the fossil may not actually belong to the Middle Pleistocene. It could in fact be much more recent.

Whether the Java Homo erectus fossils are recent or ancient, the existence of living erectus-like creatures (or recently living ones) in Java shows the coexistence of such creatures with humans in modern times. And, as we have seen in previous chapters, there is much evidence such creatures coexisted with humans in the distant past. This throws the accepted pattern of human evolution into complete confusion.

Paleoanthropologists, in the face of such evidence, or in ignorance of it, will insist that human beings of modern type could not have existed any earlier than one hundred thousand years ago, and certainly not in the Early Pleistocene, the Pliocene, or the Miocene.

But if there is uncertainty about what kinds of hominids may be around today, how can we be so sure about what kinds of hominids may or may not have been around in the distant past?

Empiric investigation of the fossil record may not be a sure guide. As Heuvelmans stated in a letter (April 15, 1986) to our researcher Stephen Bernath: “do not overestimate the importance of the fossil record. Fossilization is a very rare, exceptional phenomenon, and the fossil record cannot thus give us an exact image of life on earth during the past geological periods. The fossil record of primates is particularly poor because very intelligent and cautious animals can avoid more easily the very conditions of fossilization—such as sinking in mud or peat, for instance.”

The empiric method undoubtedly has its limitations, and the fossil record is incomplete and imperfect. But when all the fossil evidence, including that for very ancient humans and living ape-men, is objectively evaluated, the pattern that emerges is one of coexistence rather than sequential evolution.

10.11 Africa

Native informants from several countries in the western part of the African continent, such as the Ivory Coast, have given accounts of a race of pygmylike creatures covered with reddish hair. Europeans have also encountered them: “During one of his expeditions in the course of 1947, the great elephant-hunter Dunckel killed a peculiar primate unknown to him; it was small with reddishbrown hair and was shot in the great forest . . . between the Sassandra and Cavally rivers” (Sanderson 1961, p. 189). Natives are said to have bartered with these red-haired pygmies, called Sehites, leaving various trinkets in exchange for fruits (Sanderson 1961, p. 190).

Wildman reports also come from East Africa. Capt. William Hitchens reported in the December 1937 issue of Discovery: “Some years ago I was sent on an official lion-hunt in this area (the Ussure and Simibit forests on the western side of the Wembare plains) and, while waiting in a forest glade for a man-eater, I saw two small, brown, furry creatures come from dense forest on one side of the glade and disappear into the thickets on the other. They were like little men, about 4 feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair. The native hunter with me gazed in mingled fear and amazement. They were, he said, agogwe, the little furry men whom one does not see once in a lifetime” (Sanderson 1961, p. 191). Were they just apes or monkeys? It does not seem that either Hitchens or the native hunter accompanying him would have been unable to recognize an ape or monkey. Many reports of the Agogwe emanate from Tanzania and Mozambique (Green 1978, p. 133).

From the Congo region come reports of the Kakundakari and Kilomba. About 5.5 feet tall and covered with hair, they are said to walk upright like humans. Charles Cordier, a professional animal collector who worked for many zoos and museums, followed tracks of the Kakundakari in Zaire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Once, said Cordier, a Kakundakari had become entangled in one of his bird snares. “It fell on its face,” said Cordier, “turned over, sat up, took the noose off its feet, and walked away before the nearby African could do anything” (Green 1978, p. 133).