Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Comparing the newly found ER 1481 femur with a femur of Australopithecus, Leakey (1973b, p. 828) said: “The more ovoid, less robust shaft neck of Australopithecus implies that the latter, though capable of walking upright, did so only for short periods.” The “stronger neck shaft” of the new femur, Leakey (1973b, p. 828) added, “suggests its owner probably walked upright as his normal mode of locomotion.”

Concerning ER 1481, Richard Leakey (1973a, p. 450) wrote: “When the femur is compared with a restricted sample of modern African bones, there are marked similarities in those morphological features that are widely considered characteristic of modern H. sapiens. The fragments of tibia and fibula also resemble H. sapiens.” He further stated: “The head of the femur is large and set on a robust cylindrical neck which takes off from the shaft at a more obtuse angle than in known Australopithecus femurs” (R. Leakey 1973a, pp. 449–450).

Other scientists agreed with Leakey’s analysis. In 1976, B. A. Wood, anatomist at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in London, showed that in terms of three critical variables (femur neck length, femur head size, and femur neck shape), the ER 1472 and ER 1481 femurs always fell within a single standard deviation from the modern human mean. Wood (1976, p. 502) wrote: “The data . . . clearly show that femurs 1472 and 1481 from East Rudolf belong to the ‘modern human walking’ locomotor group.” Christine Tardieu (1981), also identified several humanlike features of the lower parts of the ER 1481 and ER 1472 femurs. Other workers found the femurs different from those of Homo erectus (Section 11.7.1).

Although most scientists would never dream of it, one could consider attributing the Koobi Fora femurs to a hominid very much like modern Homo sapiens, living in Africa about 2.9 million years ago (about 2.0 million years ago if you choose to believe the revised date of 1.9 million years for the KBS Tuff).

The ER 1472 and ER 1481 femurs show that distinctly anomalous discoveries are not confined to the nineteenth century. They have continued to occur with astonishing regularity up to the present day, right under our very noses, so to speak, although hardly anyone recognizes them for what they are. In Africa alone, we are building up quite a catalog: Reck’s skeleton, the Kanam jaw, the Kanjera skulls, the Kanapoi humerus, the Gombore humerus, and now the Lake Turkana femurs. All have been either attributed to Homo sapiens or described as being very humanlike. Except for the Middle Pleistocene Kanjera skulls, all were discovered in Early Pleistocene or Pliocene contexts.

11.6.4 The ER 813 Talus

In 1974, B. A. Wood (1974a, p. 135) described a talus (ankle bone) found between the KBS Tuff, then given an age of 2.6 million years, and the overlying Koobi Fora Tuff, with an age of 1.57 million years. Wood compared the fossil talus, designated ER 813, with hundreds of others, including those of modern humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and other arboreal primates.

Using multivariate statistical techniques, Wood analyzed the ankle bones in terms of 3 angular and 5 linear measurements. He concluded: “In all the variates, the fossil aligned with the modern human tali” (Wood 1974a, p. 135). Wood further stated: “the functional implications of the canonical analysis results, combined with the close morphological affinity of the fossil talus with the modern human bones, make it possible that the locomotor pattern of this early hominid was like that of modern man” (1974a, p. 136).

If we accept the younger date for the KBS Tuff, the humanlike ER 813 talus would be 1.5 to 1.9 million years old, roughly contemporary with creatures designated as Australopithecus robustus, Homo erectus, and Homo habilis.

In a subsequent report, Wood (1976, pp. 500–501) said his tests confirmed “the similarity of KNM-ER 813 with modern human bones,” showing it to be “not significantly different from the tali of modern bushmen.” One could therefore consider the possibility that the KNM-ER 813 talus belonged to an anatomically modern human in the Early Pleistocene or Late Pliocene.

C. E. Oxnard (1975a, p. 121) wrote of ER 813: “description and examination using canonical analysis by Wood (1974) confirms that it is indeed very similar to modern man and is thus unlike the australopithecine specimens.” Challenging the ancestral status of Australopithecus, Oxnard (1975a, p. 121) added: “Unless evolution took the talus through a stage where it was much like man (as at East Rudolf), then through a stage where it was uniquely different from man (as at Olduvai and possibly Kromdraai), and back again to a stage like man (modern man), then australopithecine fossils had to have been unrelated to any direct human line.”