Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Reck, understanding the significance of his find, carefully considered the possibility that the human skeleton had arrived in Bed II through burial or earth movements. He determined this was not the case. Reck (1914b) said: “The bed in which the human remains were found, without any accompanying cultural objects, showed no sign of disturbance. The spot appeared exactly like any other in the horizon. There was no evidence of any refilled hole or grave” (Hopwood 1932, p. 193).

Figure 11.2. This section of the northern slope of Olduvai Gorge (after Hopwood 1932, p. 192) shows the location where H. Reck found a fully human skeleton in 1913 in upper Bed II. Bed II is 1.15–1.7 million years old (Oakley et al. 1977, p. 166).

Later, Reck (1926) provided this account: “In some graves, the existence of refilling can be obscured by tamping down the ground and so forth. But artificial disturbance of the strata also results in the mixing together of different kinds of excavated earth. This should be quite evident in the present case. . . . But there was no sign of mixing of earth of different colors, nor were there any fragments of calcrete found mixed into the earth by the skeleton. Nothing of the sort was observed during the inspection of the original site and its surroundings at Olduvai nor in later examination of the matrix in which the skeleton was encased during transport to Germany” (Reck 1926, pp. 85–86; Hopwood 1932, p. 193). According to Reck, the strata at the site had not undergone any geological resorting by which, as Wendt (1955, p. 420) suggested, a recent layer, containing the skeleton, might have been forced into an older one.

In an unpublished manuscript, Reck observed: “The sediment . . . is so constituted that the artificial breaking of the bed with its visible layering by the digging of a grave would necessarily be recognizable.

The wall of the grave would have a definite border, an edge that would show in profile a division from the undisturbed stone. The grave filling would show an abnormal structure and heterogeneous mixture of excavated materials, including easily recognizable pieces of calcrete. Neither of these signs were to be found despite the most attentive inspection. Rather the stone directly around the skeleton was not distinguishable from the neighboring stone in terms of color, hardness, thickness of layers, structure, or order” (Hopwood 1932, pp. 193–194).

In his first report, Reck (1914a) observed: “The skeleton in the grave was complete, though somewhat shifted and compressed [Figure 11.3]. It lay in horizontal position, exactly parallel to the layers of stone in which it was embedded, just

as were all the faunal remains” (Hopwood 1932, p. 193).

Figure 11.3. The skull found by H. Reck in Bed II of Olduvai Gorge was distorted (Reck 1933, plate 30). W. O. Dietrich (1933) believed this distortion argued against the skeleton being a recent shallow burial.

This sheds light on the question of burial. Beds I through IV at Olduvai were laid down by water in a lake bed, producing a distinct sequence of thin layers. Before the deposition of the overlying Ndutu Beds, starting 400,000 years ago (Oakley et al. 1977, p. 166), faulting tilted the Olduvai strata in an east-west direction. If the skeleton had been buried in Bed II fairly recently, it probably would have intersected at an angle the layers of Bed II, here tilted about 7 degrees (Hopwood 1932, p. 192).

The skeleton’s distortion by compression was also significant (Figure 11.3, p. 629). W. O. Dietrich, writing in 1933, stated that this feature of the skeleton argued against its being a recent, shallow burial in the top of Bed II. Its condition indicated a substantial accumulation of sediments had once covered it (Dietrich 1933, pp. 299–303). According to Reck, the deposition of the skeleton took place during the formation of Bed II. Later, the full weight of Beds III and IV would have covered the skeleton. Still later, after the erosion of Bed IV, Beds III and V would have covered the skeleton. All in all, the skeleton’s condition and stratagraphic position appeared to rule out recent burial.

Reck returned to Germany, carrying Olduvai man’s skull with him. He left the rest of the skeleton, encased in a block of Bed II sediment, to be shipped with the expedition’s baggage.