Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Figure 3.5. Top: Stone implements from Olduvai Gorge (M. Leakey 1971, pp. 45, 113). Bottom: Implements found by Benjamin Harrison on the Kent Plateau, England (Moir 1924, p. 639; E. Harrison 1928, p. 342).

The Olduvai Gorge implements are extremely crude, but to our knowledge, no paleoanthropologists have ever challenged their status as intentionally manufactured objects.

Harrison believed that the Kent eoliths belonged to an older period than that represented by his paleoliths. But in his 1889 report, Sir John Prestwich did not make a distinction between the two forms. Of the eoliths, Sir Edward R. Harrison stated: “Prestwich in his paper made no attempt to claim for them a higher antiquity than that of the Plateau paleoliths, with which they seemed to be associated” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 145). As we have seen, the nature of the drift gravels on the Kent Plateau and the hilltops of the North Downs suggested a Late Pliocene age for the implements.

In the aftermath of Prestwich’s presentation, Harrison found himself somewhat of a celebrity. His name appeared in newspapers, and scientists from all parts of the world began to make the pilgrimage to his museum above his grocery shop in Ightham. In June of 1889, the members of the Geological Society of London visited Ightham for a tour of the sites from which the stone implements had been recovered.

Even the considerable authority of Prestwich was, however, not enough to end all controversy regarding Harrison’s discoveries, particularly the eoliths. Many scientists still saw in the eoliths nothing but the result of purely natural, rather than artificial forces. Nevertheless, Harrison was gradually winning converts. On September 18, 1889, A. M. Bell, a Fellow of the Geological Society, wrote to Harrison: “I am glad that you saw the veteran Professor [Prestwich], and that his verdict on these unbulbed scrapers coincides with our own. I have looked again and again at the edges of those which I selected, and with an increasing feeling that there is a human purpose dimly visible in the working. There seems to be something more in the uniform though rude chipping than mere accidental attrition would have produced. I have come to this conclusion with diffidence: first, because I had hitherto regarded the bulb or trace of artificial blow as a sine qua non; second, and more important, because I feel and have all along felt that the real enemy to such a story as ours is the too enthusiastic friend who sees what is not there; but having made my conclusion, I hold it with all firmness. Until I see flints carefully and uniformly chipped all round their edges, and only in one direction of blow, by natural action, I shall believe that these are artificial” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 151).

A modern expert in lithic technology, Leland W. Patterson, also believes it is possible to distinguish even very crude intentional work from natural action. Considering “a typical example of a flake that has damage to its edge as a result of natural causes in a seasonally active stream bed,” Patterson (1983, p. 303) stated: “Fractures occur randomly in a bifacial manner. The facets are short, uneven, and steeply transverse across the flake edge. It would be difficult to visualize how random applications of force could create uniform, unidirectional retouch along a significant length of a flake edge. Fortuitous, unifacial damage to an edge generally has no uniform pattern of retouch.” Unifacial tools, those with regular chipping confined to one side of a surface, formed a large part of the Eolithic assemblages gathered by Harrison and others.

Prestwich, however, was at first very cautious about the eoliths, feeling more comfortable with the more readily identifiable paleoliths. But gradually he began to change his mind. On September 10, 1890, Harrison and Prestwich were searching the West Yoke ocherous gravels, which were stained red (ocher) by iron compounds. Harrison wrote: “Professor Prestwich was impressed by the great spread of worn gravel, and remarked that it was a ‘capital exhibition of ochreous drift in an important position.’ At his request I filled my satchel with the water-worn flints, which were scattered over the field in abundance. It was the dawn of the era of the eoliths, for on this day he pressed me to take home specimens that only a few months earlier he would have regarded as too doubtful to be preserved” (E. Harrison 1928, pp. 155–156).