Here is another problem. The first Homo erectus specimens were found by Eugene Dubois in Java in the 1890s. First he found an apelike skull. And the next year he found a femur or thighbone, about 45 feet away. Bones of many other kinds of animals were found in the same deposit. Dubois thought the skull and thighbone belonged to the same creature, which he called Pithecanthropus erectus. Right from the start, many scientists refused to accept that both bones belonged to the same creature. But eventually, the scientific community agreed with Dubois. Evolutionists needed a missing link connecting living humans with their extinct ape ancestors, and Dubois had given them a likely candidate.
Interestingly enough, later researchers reinterpreted the original Java Homo erectus fossils. In 1973, M. H. Day and T. I. Molleson determined that the femur found by Dubois is different from other Homo erectus femurs and is in fact indistinguishable from anatomically modern human femurs. This caused Day and Molleson (1973) to propose that the femur was not connected with the Java man skull. It thus appears that Dubois was mistaken in attributing them to the same creature. This finding is well known in professional circles, but in most textbooks and science museum displays, the Java man skull and femur are still shown as belonging together. Why? For decades, the discovery of Java man by Dubois has been practically mythologized. Apparently, scientists are hesitant to destroy the public myth they have created.
After Dubois discovered Java man, G. H. R. von Koenigswald made additional discoveries of Homo erectus fossils, as did other scientists. The finds look impressive in textbooks, but they are in fact of very little value because of their insecure dating. Most were found on the surface, which means they could be of almost any age, including very recent.
In 1856, some German workmen uncovered some bones in a cave high up one of the walls of the Neander valley (neandertal in German). The bones were turned over to a local naturalist, and from that moment on the Neandertals have been a source of endless controversy in science. The two hottest issues are (1) the physical and cultural characteristics of the Neandertals and (2) their relationship to modern humans. Looking at the Neandertal fossils and their associated stone tools and other cultural artifacts, some scientists have characterized the Neandertals as physically bestial and culturally primitive. Others have given them more human appearance and behavior. The disagreements on this topic have been going on for about 150 years, and they have not stopped. On the relationship of the Neandertals to modern humans, the debate also remains intense. Some scientists are convinced they are our immediate ancestors, and others are convinced they are just a sidebranch that went extinct, leaving no descendants. Physical anthropologists Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman (1994) wrote The neandertals: of Skeletons, Scientists, and Scandals, which details in lively prose the twists and turns of the scientific debates on the Neandertals. Trinkaus and Shipman demonstrate that scientists past and present have been victims of bias and prejudice, and that they have sometimes used their positions of authority to influence the outcome of scientific debates.
One might expect that as we get closer to the present, the picture of human evolution might become somewhat clearer. Wrong. Today the heaviest disputes in human evolution studies are those concerning the most recent evolutionary event of all—the emergence of anatomically modern humans. On one side are those who say that anatomically modern humans arose once, in a single, geographically isolated part of the world, usually given as Africa. And on the other side are those who say humans arose several times in different parts of the world. This is known as the multiregional hypothesis. Complicating the picture are the Neandertals. As we have seen, some scientists would have modern humans coming directly from Homo erectus, with the Neandertals as a side branch that went extinct, whereas others would incorporate the Neandertals as the immediate ancestors of at least some modern humans.
In 1987, scientists (Cann et al.) announced that mitochondrial DNA studies had shown that humans had arisen from Africa about 200,000 years ago, thus disproving the multiregional hypothesis. But other scientists showed that these studies were flawed. Scientists have used other kinds of DNA studies to support their claims about human evolution. But these also have serious flaws. We shall consider this genetic evidence in depth in chapter 4.
Although Darwinist scientists present a united front to the public, proclaiming loudly that the evolution of humans from apelike ancestors is an established fact, they have not found the actual evolutionary path. But if the path has not been found, how can they assert, except as a matter of faith, that the evolution of humans from apelike ancestors actually did occur?
The Hidden History of the Human Race
Up to now, we have been looking at the problems that confront Darwinists in dealing with the evidence that is currently known and accepted by them. But in Forbidden Archeology, we learn that large amounts of evidence have disappeared from view by a process of knowledge filtration. Because this evidence contradicted the established evolutionary doctrines at particular times over the past 150 years, it has been eliminated from scientific discussion. This evidence shows that anatomically modern humans existed millions of years ago. If accepted, this evidence would destroy the evolutionary scenario outlined above, which has anatomically modern humans emerging about 100,000 years ago. Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and the Neandertals would no longer be human ancestors. They would all simply be creatures that coexisted with anatomically modern humans.
Evidence for extreme human antiquity is consistent with the ancient Vedic literature of India. This literature includes a group of writings called the Puranas, or histories. The Puranas inform us that humans have existed for vast periods of cyclical time. The basic unit of this cyclical time is the day of Brahma. The day of Brahma lasts for 4,320,000,000 years. It is followed by a night of Brahma, which also lasts for 4,320,000,000 years. The days and nights of Brahma follow each other endlessly. During the days of Brahma, life, including human life, is manifest, and during the nights of Brahma, life is not manifest. According to the Vedic cosmological calendars, the current day of Brahma began about 2 billion years ago. So a Vedic archeologist might expect to find evidence that humans have
18 HumAn DevoluTion: A vedic Alternative to Darwin’s Theory
existed for up to 2 billion years. The Puranas and other Vedic writings also speak of creatures with apelike bodies and humanlike intelligence. For example, the Shrimad Bhagavatam (9.18) tells of the monkey soldiers who assisted Lord Rama in defeating the demon Ravana. So a Vedic archeologist might also expect to find evidence for various types of apemen coexisting with humans of our type in the distant past.
Here is an example of the kind of evidence reported in Forbidden Archeology. In 1979, researchers at the Laetoli, Tanzania, site in East Africa discovered footprints in volcanic ash deposits over 3.6 million years old. Mary Leakey (1979) and others said the prints were indistinguishable from those of modern humans. To these scientists, this meant only that the australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago had remarkably modern feet. But according to other scientists, such as physical anthropologist R. H. Tuttle of the University of Chicago, fossil foot bones of the known australopithecines of 3.6 million years ago show they had feet that were distinctly apelike (Tuttle 1985). Hence they were incompatible with the Laetoli prints. In an article in the March 1990 issue of natural History, Tuttle (1990) confessed “we are left with somewhat of a mystery.” It seems permissible, therefore, to consider a possibility neither Tuttle nor Leakey mentioned—that creatures with anatomically modern human bodies to match their anatomically modern human feet existed some 3.6 million years ago in East Africa. In Forbidden Archeology, I documented hundreds of other examples of this kind of evidence, grouping them in the following categories—carved bones, stone tools, human fossils, and artifacts suggestive of high levels of culture.