Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

So the stone implements collected by Moir from beds below the Red Crag formation could be of that age. In fact, it is quite possible that any of the stone implements, from the crudest to the most sophisticated, could be referred to any period from the Late Pliocene to the Eocene.

At the very least, then, the implements are Late Pliocene in age. But according to present evolutionary theory one should not expect to find signs of toolmaking humans in England at 2–3 million years ago. Two million years before the present, our toolmaking hominid ancestors (of the Homo habilis type) should still have been confined to their homeland in Africa. Three million years before the present, we should expect to find in Africa only the apelike australopithecines, who are not generally recognized as makers of stone tools.

Of his Miocene inhabitants of England, Moir (1927, p. 31) wrote: “Unfortunately, no actual bones of the people who made these implements have yet been discovered, but, judging from these specimens, we conclude that their makers were possessed of considerable strength, and represent an early and brutal stage in human evolution.”

We do not deny the possibility that ape-man-like creatures might have been responsible for the implements reported by Moir. But even today, modern humans are known to manufacture very primitive stone tools. It is thus possible that beings very much like Homo sapiens sapiens could have made the crudest of the implements recovered by Moir from below the Red Crag. In the absence of skeletal evidence directly connected with the stone tools, it is impossible to say with certainty what kind of creature manufactured them. All may have been made by humanlike creatures, all may have been made by ape-man-like creatures, or perhaps some were manufactured by humanlike creatures and others by apeman-like creatures.

The implements themselves were a matter of extreme controversy. Many scientists thought them to be products of natural forces rather than of human work. Nevertheless, Moir had many influential supporters. These included Henri Breuil, who personally investigated the sites (Section 3.4.7). He found in Moir’s collection an apparent sling stone from below the Red Crag (Section 5.3.1). Another supporter was Archibald Geikie, a respected geologist and president of the Royal Society (Millar 1972, p. 100). Yet another was Sir Ray Lankester, a director of the British Museum. Lankester identified from among Moir’s specimens a representative type of implement he named rostro-carinate. This word calls attention to two prominent characteristics of the tools. “Rostro” refers to the beaklike shape of the working portion of the implements, and “carinate” refers to the sharp keellike prominence running along part of their dorsal surface (Moir 1927, p. 26).

Lankester presented a detailed analysis of the “Norwich test specimen” (Figure 3.7). A particularly good example of the rostro-carinate type of implement, it was discovered beneath the Red Crag at Whitlingham, near Norwich (Moir 1927, p. 28; Osborn 1921, p. 576). If the Norwich test specimen is from below the Red Crag, it would be over 2.5 million years old. If it is from below the Norwich Crag as suggested by Sparks and West (1972, p. 234), it would be over 2.0 million years old (Table 2.1, p. 78). The Norwich test specimen combined a good demonstration of intentional work with clear stratigraphic position Sir Ray Lankester wrote in a Royal Antropological Institute report in 1914: “it is not possible for anyone acquainted with flint-workmanship and also with the nonhuman fracture of flint to maintainthatitiseveninaremotedegree possible that the sculpturing of this Norwich test flint was produced by other than human agency” (Coles 1968, p. 27).

Professor J. M. Coles of Cambridge University (1968, p. 27) later noted: “His description was full and was accompanied by drawings and photographs showing that approximately 40 flakes had been removed from various angles and positions around the flint, consisting of two cleaving fractures, a group of large conchoidal flakings, and a third group of smaller flakings directed upon specific parts, particularly the beaked portion.”

Figure 3.7. The Norwich test specimen. J. Reid Moir (1927, p. 28) said it was found beneath the Red Crag at Whitlingham, England. The beak (arrow) forms the working portion of the implement, which, if from below the Red Crag, would be over 2.5 million years old.