Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Some scientists had called attention to apparent filing of the teeth of Reck’s skeleton, suggesting this was characteristic of the tribal people inhabiting the region during recent historical times. To this Leakey replied: “I have personally examined the so-called ‘filing’ of the teeth of the Oldoway man on the original specimen at Munich, and this ‘filing’ has no resemblance to any filing done by native tribes to-day, and it is, to my mind, exceedingly doubtful if it can be called filing at all” (L. Leakey 1932a, p. 721).

Leakey then referred to his own finds at Kanam and Kanjera (Section 11.2), which he believed supported the Middle Pleistocene antiquity of Reck’s skeleton. “Actually in situ at a place called Kanam,” stated Leakey, “in the same horizon as the Pre-Chellean tools and the Deinotherium, we found a fragment of a mandible of Homo sapiens type, thus putting Homo sapiens in East Africa back one stage further than Oldoway Man—in fact, in deposits of the same age as Bed No. 1 at Oldoway” (L. Leakey 1932a, p. 722). The upper part of Bed I at Olduvai is now thought to be about 1.7–1.8 million years old (Oakley et al. 1977, p. 166).

About the Kanjera finds, Leakey reported: “We have . . . found fragments of the skulls of three different individuals of Homo sapiens type completely mineralised and just washed out of the exposures by the rains. They are in the same state of complete mineralisation as the remains of Elephas antiquus,

Hipparion, etc., from the same beds, and I have personally no doubt whatever that they were in situ a month or two ago, before the beginning of the present rainy season. These later remains are probably, then, the contemporary of the Oldoway skeleton, and since we have fragments which make up the greater part of the skull cap of one of the [Kanjera] individuals, an interesting comparison will be possible later on” (L. Leakey 1932a, p. 722).

C. Forster Cooper and D. M. S. Watson were still not satisfied. In June 1932, they said in a letter to Nature that red pebbles from Bed III may perhaps have been discolored. “Mere proximity to a large decaying body often alters the character of a matrix,” said Cooper and Watson (1932b). This would explain why Reck and Leakey did not see the Bed III pebbles in the matrix surrounding the skeleton. Hopwood, however, disagreed that Bed III pebbles would have lost their bright red color. He pointed out that the top of Bed II, in which the skeleton was found, was also reddish and stated: “The reddish colour of the matrix is against the theory that any inclusions of Bed III would have been decolorised by decomposition products” (Hopwood 1932, p. 194).

In support of their post-Bed II burial hypothesis, Cooper and Watson offered additional explanations for the absence of Bed III materials in the supposed grave filling. According to Cooper and Watson (1932b), the grave diggers would have taken the red Bed III materials out first and thrown them back in last, on the top. This would explain why no Bed III materials were present in the matrix immediately surrounding the skeleton in Bed II. But this hypothesis depends on a fairly deep grave, with lots of Bed II materials being thrown out of the grave upon the previously removed Bed III materials. This would insure little mixing when the materials were placed back into the grave. But the hardness of the Bed II materials argues against a deep burial. When Reck found the skeleton, it had to be removed with chisels. So if there were a burial, it would most likely have been a shallow one. And in a shallow grave, dug through the rubble of Beds III and V a short distance into Bed II, mixing of materials from Beds II, III, and V would have been hard to avoid in the grave refilling. Since no mixing was visible, there was, all things considered, probably no post-Bed II burial.

Another suggestion—the skeleton was buried horizontally into Bed II, from the side of Olduvai Gorge. Therefore, no Bed III materials were found in the skeleton’s matrix. But Hopwood (1932, p. 194) said: “It would appear that the onus of proof lies on those who might wish to make such a suggestion.” The hardness of Bed II poses a substantial obstacle to horizontal burial.