Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

In 1895, the same year that the Geological Society of London awarded him part of the Lyell Fund (E. Harrison 1928, p. 196), Harrison was invited to exhibit his eoliths at a meeting of the Royal Society. He was quite pleased to have the chance to show his specimens to this scientific elite (E. Harrison 1928, p. 197). Sir Edward Harrison (1928, p. 197) stated: “This was an opportunity not to be missed, and he informed Prestwich of his intention to send for exhibition the specimens found in situ in the excavation in the drift at Parsonage Farm. Prestwich did not dissent from this proposal, but he advised the exhibition also of carefully selected surface specimens, arranged in groups. Harrison followed this counsel in the main, but he included too large a proportion of specimens from the pit, and amongst them specimens which did not impress those who saw them so much as he had hoped.”

Some scientists, however, were quite impressed, among them E. T. Newton, a Fellow of the Royal Society and paleontologist of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, who wrote to Harrison on December 24, 1895: “I hope you will not mind your specimens remaining with me until after the Christmas holidays. I feel satisfied that most of them, to say the least, show human work, and some of these are definitely from one of the pits. . . . Some of the specimens I should be very doubtful about, but there are others that I cannot bring myself to believe are accidental; they have been done intentionally, and, therefore, by the only intellectual being we know of, Man” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 202). Here we have an example of a qualified scientist fully accepting as genuine human artifacts some of the eoliths excavated from the Pliocene Plateau drifts. Modern authorities, who have never examined the specimens in question, might thus be cautious of prematurely dismissing them.

3.2.10 The Problem of Forgery

Of course, recognizing intentional human work is always beset with many difficulties, and in his notebooks Harrison mentioned one of the most vexing—forgery. On March 26, 1896, Harrison was visited by William Cunnington, a Fellow of the Geological Society. Harrison wrote: “He was well acquainted with Flint Jack, the notorious forger of flint implements. Flint Jack’s first appearance was characteristic. He entered Mr. Cunnington’s office, and, taking from his pocket some flints wrapped in paper, said, ‘I hear you buy flint arrowheads.’ ‘You are Flint Jack.’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I am, and as I was passing I thought you would like to see some arrow-heads made!’ On one occasion Mr. Cunnington set him up in life and gave him decent clothing, hoping to reform him, but in vain. Mr. Cunnington sent him to Farmingham to get some fossils. On his return he produced a stone which he said he had bought for a shilling from a shepherd. Recognizing at once that the stone was a forgery, Mr. Cunnington accused him of making it, and refused to have anything more to do with him. The forged implement was made of sandstone. Flint Jack had shaped it with a pick, and had afterwards rubbed it over with earth to disguise its new appearance” (E. Harrison 1928, p. 205).

Harrison was not without his own experience of forgers. In his notebook entry for May 29, 1894, he stated that Smith, an Ightham laborer, had told him: “When Seldon and I were working on the railway he said to me, ‘I wonder whether we shall find any flints for Mr. Harrison.’ We did not find any of the right sort, not your sort, you know. He said, ‘Here’s a big ’un. I’ll take him home and hammer him up a bit, file him, and make him look like one of the right sort.’ When he brought it to you, he thought you would not know it, but would think it was one of the right sort. He asked you if it was one of the right sort, and you said, ‘This is one of your own make, Seldon.’ Seldon said, ‘I thought he would not know, but I was too tricky, he know’d it. Its no use taking home-made ones to him, he knows too much. But he give me some tobacco for being tricky’” (E. Harrison

1928, p. 195). It should, however, be noted that it is not only laborers who are responsible for forgery. As we shall see, in the case of Piltdown man the finger of guilt points in the direction of the scientists themselves.

3.2.11 “The Greater Antiquity of Man”

In 1895, Sir John Prestwich published in Nineteenth Century, a popular magazine directed at the intelligent public, a review of the Ightham implements titled “The Greater Antiquity of Man.” Since it gives, in layman’s terms, an excellent summary of the scientific issues involved in the eolith question, we shall here reproduce some sections of the article.