Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

The paper by Zuckerman and Oxnard on the pelvic study was originally presented at a symposium of the Zoological Society of London in 1973. At the conclusion of the symposium, Zuckerman made some important remarks. He said: “for more than 25 years anatomists and anthropologists—I am talking about physical anthropologists now—have been turning themselves inside out, persuading themselves and others that the obviously simian characteristics of the australopithecine fossils could be reconciled with the model of some assumed protohuman type. Over the years I have been almost alone in challenging the conventional wisdom about the australopithecines—alone, that is to say, in conjunction with my colleagues in the school I built up in Birmingham—but I fear to little effect. The voice of higher authority had spoken, and its message in due course became incorporated in text books all over the world” (Zuckerman 1973, pp. 450–451).

The situation has not changed since Zuckerman spoke in 1973. The voices of authority in paleoanthropology and the scientific community in general have managed to keep the humanlike view of Australopithecus intact. The extensive and well-documented evidence contradicting this favored view remains confined to the pages of professional journals, where it has little or no influence on the public in general, even the educated public.

Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) also stated: “in my view what above all has denied the study of the palaeontology of the higher Primates the right to be regarded as a serious science is the fact that over the years ex cathedra pronouncements about what constitutes a unique human characteristic in a bone have usually proved nonsense. My belief is that they will always do so.”

Zuckerman (1973, p. 451) explained: “It could well be that some feature or group of features in a fossil bone—maybe those having some definable mechanical significance—proves to be more like the corresponding features in man than in the living apes. Almost invariably other features in the same region would be likely to turn out far more ape-like than human. In combination, we end up with something that differs from both men and apes, and which would thus be unique. What conclusion does one then draw, one might well ask. Are we to suppose that the fossils are ancestral to one group, or to the other, or neither? This is the kind of question people try to answer, but we have to recognize that it is at the same time the sort of question which is not amenable to any answer which would be scientifically final.”

Oxnard believed that much of the evidence required to find an answer had dropped out of sight. Reviewing the decades-long controversy about the nature of Australopithecus, Oxnard (1984, pp. 317–318) said: “In the uproar, at the time, as to whether or not these creatures were near ape or human, the opinion that they were human won the day. This may well have resulted not only in the defeat of the contrary opinion but also in the burying of that part of the evidence upon which the contrary opinion was based. If this is so, it should be possible to unearth this other part of the evidence. This evidence may actually be more compatible with the new view; it may help open the possibility that these particular australopithecines are neither like African apes nor humans, and certainly not intermediate, but something markedly different from either.”

Of course, this is exactly the point we have been making throughout this book. Evidence has been buried. We ourselves have uncovered considerable amounts of such buried evidence relating to the antiquity of the modern human type.

11.8.4 Opposition to Statistical Studies

Some have claimed that the statistical approach employed by Oxnard and Zuckerman is inappropriate and misleading.

For example Robert Broom said: “I regard all biometricians in the field of morphology as fools” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76). Donald Johanson, discoverer and defender of Lucy, ridiculed Zuckerman, accusing him of “kicking up more and more biometric dust” and firing off “statistical salvos” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76).

Johanson noted: “To give Zuckerman his due, there were resemblances between ape skull and australopithecine skulls. The brains were approximately the same size, both had prognathous (long, jutting) jaws, and so on. What Zuckerman missed was the importance of some traits that australopithecines had in common with men” (Johanson and Edey 1981, p. 76).