Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Worthington G. Smith, repeating a common objection, wrote to Harrison on March 26, 1892: “It appears to me that the importance of your discovery of implements rests on your lighting on genuine undoubted examples on the high levels. I don’t attach much importance myself to the dubious and disputed forms [the eoliths], because such forms occur with genuine implements in all paleolithic gravels. The very rudest forms can never mean anything, unless such forms are exclusive, and pertain only to certain deposits” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 175). Here Smith appears to have ignored all the evidence amassed by Prestwich for the greater antiquity of the Plateau eoliths, even when found in association with more advanced Paleolithic types. Among other things, Prestwich repeatedly emphasized that the eoliths, and some of the paleoliths, are very much worn and patinated whereas other paleoliths and neoliths retain the original color of the flint and have sharp edges.

All that aside, however, it appears that Harrison did find locations in which the eoliths occur by themselves. Sir Edward R. Harrison (1928, p. 176) has stated of the eoliths: “Harrison was influenced principally by their rude character, and he thought it likely that they were, for that reason, the tools of a race older than paleolithic man. Subsequently, when excavations had been made in the drifts, he found confirmation of his views in the fact that whilst certain drifts produced occasional paleoliths in apparent association with rude implements, there was also on Parsonage Farm and elsewhere, an older drift or ‘buried channel’ which, in his experience, contained rude implements alone.”

Of course, the fact that the eoliths are sometimes found by themselves had already been reported by Prestwich. All this reveals much about scientific discussion concerning anomalous evidence. Scientists whose preconceptions dispose them to reject certain evidence often tend to repeat their objections even after they have been met with apparently adequate responses, as if the response had never been made. Doctrinaire scientists also set conditions they believe should be met, even when such conditions have already been met. All of this makes for an Alice-in-Wonderland type of discourse: “My dear sir, I have found crudely chipped stone tools alone.” “Well sir, I really think you should find these chipped stone tools alone.” “But I have sir.” “Then you very well should do so, or I shall never believe you.” Or: “Dear sir, let me demonstrate how this set of stone tools is older than this other set.” “Very well, but I really think you should now demonstrate that this set of tools is older than the other set.” “But I already have.” “Yes, but you should do it, and until you do so, I shall never believe you.”

Sir John B. Evans provides a good example of this kind of interchange. Evans wrote to Harrison on October 29, 1892: “A certain number of flints, such, for instance, as several from Ash, are to my mind undoubtedly fashioned by man; there are others which probably have been worked, and others again which possibly have had their edges retouched. The great majority, however, seem to me to have assumed their present forms by natural agency. . . . When the more perfect implements are found with these ruder forms, there is no reason for regarding them as otherwise than contemporary . . . everyone will accept the ordinary forms of paleolithic implements as having been found at the high levels, and I am doubtful as to the desirability of complicating the question with a second race of men and a set of implements of extremely questionable character” (E. Harrison

1928, p. 184). Here Evans admitted that some of the rude implements display signs of human work. If he admitted that some, however few, were the result of human work, this conclusion was not nullified by the fact that the “great majority” appeared to have been the result of natural action. As for the relative ages of the eoliths and the paleoliths, he appears to have either missed or deliberately ignored all the evidence suggesting that the Eolithic implements could have been more ancient.

A troubled Harrison wrote to Prestwich, who replied on November 15,

1892: “No explanation necessary. Your collection stands on its merits. Differences of opinion there will always be. All you have to say is that Sir John Evans accepts some specimens and rejects others. Let everyone judge for himself ” ( E. Harrison 1928, p. 185).

Despite the continuing controversy, the British Museum still thought enough of the eoliths to purchase, in 1893, a set of representative specimens ( E. Harrison