Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

While the uranium content values, as reported, are consistent with the Kanjeran and Kanam faunas being older than the human bones, there are reasons for caution. The values reported for the Kanjeran fauna—26, 131, 146, 159, and 216 parts eU3O8 per million—vary widely. The highest value is 8.3 times greater than the lowest, although the bones are supposedly of the same general age. Also, the uranium content of the Kanjera 3 human fossils ranged from 8 to 42 parts per million, differing by a factor of 5 in a single individual. The high and low values for the Kanam fauna vary by a factor of 3.5, and for the Kanam jaw itself by a factor of 3. This reinforces our observation (Appendix 1.2.4) that the rate at which a bone absorbs uranium depends on many highly variable conditions— such as the concentration of uranium in the groundwater, the rate of groundwater flow, and the nature of the surrounding sediment. Also, different kinds of bone (and, apparently, even different parts of the same bone) may absorb uranium at greatly different rates. All of this tends to reduce the value of uranium content as a relative age indicator.

Oakley himself pointed out: “the distribution of uranyl ions in ground-water, like that of fluorine ions is subject to very considerable variation from place to place . . . it appears that fossil bones of Upper Pleistocene or early Holocene age in Kugata near Mount Homa [close to Kanam] not only contain more fluorine than bones of Lower Pleistocene age at Kanam, but are more radioactive on account of adsorbed uranium” (Tobias 1968, p. 181).

Leakey reported that some of the Kanjera human skull fragments, now classified Homo sapiens cf. sapiens (Groves 1989, p. 291), were found in situ in the Middle Pleistocene Kanjeran deposits. Oakley (1974, p. 257), however, explained: “When deposits such as the Kanjera beds become waterlogged during the wet season, bones lying on the surface become readily incorporated, so that when subsequently discovered they can easily have the appearance of occurring in situ.” Is this what actually happened? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Oakley had to stretch even further to account for the Kanam jaw. After pointing out that Tobias had said the Kanam jaw was comparable to the Middle Pleistocene Rabat jaw, Oakley (1975, p. 152) said: “I suggest that during some interval in Middle Pleistocene times the jaw lay on a surface littered with fossils weathered out from the Kanam beds and it became embedded with these derived fossils in a block of surface limestone which was eventually down-faulted or trapped in a fissure penetrating the Kanam Beds. This would explain the low uranium content and the high degree of calcification, and at the same time take into account L. S. B. Leakey’s statement in his memoirs . . . that Juma Gitau discovered the Kanam jaw fragment while engaged on extracting a molar of tooth of Deinotherium. As he expressed it to me: ‘the jaw was in the same block as an undoubted Lower Pleistocene fossil.’”

Oakley had no trouble inventing special geological scenarios to explain away the stratigraphic evidence. But he offered no proof, such as positive signs of faulting, that these scenarios were correct. Operating as Oakley did, one can easily dispose of any unwanted stratigraphic evidence whatsoever.

But even if we do grant stratigraphic resorting, this does not necessarily show that the hominid fossils at Kanam and Kanjera were younger than the mammalian fossils at these sites. For example, Tobias (1968, p. 181) said: “The low radiometric values of the Kanam mandible do not necessarily bespeak a recent age for the jaw, but only a different history and probably a different age as compared with the other Kanam fauna.” In fact, if the Kanam jaw had been washed in from a Late Pliocene deposit with a low uranium content, it could be older than the Early Pleistocene animal fossils in the Kanam bed.

Tobias, however, chose a more comfortable alternative. “Nothing in these results,” he said “would rule out the possibility that the Kanam mandible was derived from Middle Pleistocene beds in the vicinity, such as those of Rawe close to Kanam West” (Tobias 1968, p. 181). A late Middle Pleistocene date would be favorable for his view that the jaw is neanderthaloid.

Significantly, the uranium content values that Oakley reported in 1974 were apparently not the first he had obtained. In a paper published in 1958, Oakley said, immediately after discussing the uranium content testing of the Kanam jaw: “Applied to the Kanjera bones our tests did not show any discrepancy between the human skulls and the associated fauna” (1958, p. 53). It would appear that Oakley was not satisfied with these early tests and later performed additional tests on the Kanjera bones, obtaining results that were more to his liking.