In 1863, J. Boucher de Perthes discovered an anatomically modern human jaw in the Moulin Quignon gravel pit at Abbeville, France. He removed it from a layer of black sand and gravel 16.5 feet deep. The layer also contained stone implements of the Acheulean type (Keith
1928, p. 270). The Acheulean sites at Abbeville are about 400,000 years old. Upon hearing of the discovery of the Abbeville jaw and tools, a group of distinguished British geologists visited Abbeville and were at first favorably impressed. Later, however, it was alleged that some of the stone implements in Boucher de Perthes’s collection were forgeries foisted on him by the workmen. The British scientists then began to doubt the authenticity of the jaw (Keith 1928, p. 271).
In May 1863, British geologists and archeologists met with their French counterparts in France to decide the status of the jaw. The commission jointly declared in favor of the authenticity of the jaw, despite some reservations by two of the British members. Thereafter, however, the British members continued to oppose the Moulin Quignon jaw and eventually won most scientists over to their side.
In the aftermath of the Moulin Quignon debate, Boucher des Perthes continued to maintain that his discoveries were genuine. To help prove this, he conducted several more excavations at Moulin Quignon, under very strict controls and in the presence of trained scientific observers. These excavations yielded many more anatomically modern human bones, bone fragments, and teeth. These discoveries, which received almost no attention in the English-speaking world, are significant demonstrations of a human presence in the Middle Pleistocene of Europe, over
400,000 years ago. They also tend to strengthen the case for the authenticity of the original Moulin Quignon jaw.
In 1868, Eugene Bertrand reported to the Anthropological Society of Paris that he found parts of a human skull, along with a femur, tibia, and some foot bones, in a quarry on the Avenue de Clichy. The bones were found 5.25 meters (17.3 feet) beneath the surface. Sir Arthur Keith (1928, pp. 276–277) believed the layer in which Clichy human bones were found was the same age as the one in which the Galley Hill skeleton was discovered. This would make the Clichy bones approximately 330,000 years old. The depth at which the Clichy human fossils were found (over
17 feet) argues against recent burial.
But Gabriel de Mortillet (Bertrand 1868, p. 332) said that a workman at the quarry on the Avenue de Clichy told him that he had stashed in the bottom of the pit a skeleton from the upper layers of the quarry. Even after hearing de Mortillet relate the workman’s story about stashing the bones of the Clichy skeleton, a number of scientists remained convinced Bertrand’s discovery was genuine. For example, Professor E. T. Hamy (Bertrand 1868, p. 335) said: “Mr. Bertrand’s discovery seems to me to be so much less debatable in that it is not the first of this kind at Avenue de Clichy. Indeed, our esteemed colleague, Mr. Reboux, found in that same locality, and almost at the same depth (4.20 meters), human bones that he has given me to study.”
In his remarks to the Anthropological Society, Bertrand provided additional evidence for the great antiquity of the Clichy skeleton. He stated that he found a human ulna in the stratum containing the other bones of the Clichy human skeleton. The ulna is the larger of the two long bones of the forearm. When Bertrand tried to extract the ulna it crumbled into dust. He offered this as proof that the Clichy human skeleton must have been native to the layer in which it was found. Apparently, Bertrand reasoned that a bone as fragile as the decayed ulna could not possibly have been removed from an upper layer of the quarry and stashed by a workman in the lower layer in which Bertrand found it—it would certainly have been destroyed in the process. This indicated that the ulna belonged to the stratum in which Bertrand found it, as did the other human bones.
In 1911, J. Reid Moir discovered an anatomically modern human skeleton beneath a layer of glacial boulder clay near the town of Ipswich, in the East Anglia region of England. The skeleton was found at a depth of 1.38 meters (about 4.5 feet), in deposits as much as 400,000 years old. Moir took care to rule out the possibility of burial from a more recent level.
The discovery, however, inspired intense opposition. Sir Arthur Keith (1928, p. 299) wrote, “Under the presumption that the modern type of man is also modern in origin, a degree of high antiquity is denied to such specimens.” Despite opposition, Moir initially stuck to his guns, holding that the Ipswich skeleton was genuinely old. Then suddenly he reversed himself, declaring the skeleton recent. What then happened to change his mind? He found nearby, at the same level, some advanced stone tools. He therefore concluded that the layer of boulder clay above the skeleton had been formed about 30,000 years ago from the sludgelike remnants of the original boulder clay deposit, formed hundreds of thousands of years earlier (Moir 1916, p. 109). But sophisticated stone tools turn up all over the world, in very old formations. Therefore, I cannot agree with Moir that the discovery of tools of advanced type at the same level as the Ipswich skeleton was sufficient reason to reinterpret the site stratigraphy to bring the age of the skeleton into harmony with the supposed age of the tools.
A very strong case for anatomically modern humans existing in very early times comes from Argentina. In 1896, workers excavating a dry dock in Buenos Aires found a human skull. They took it from the rudder pit at the bottom of the excavation, after breaking through a layer of a hard, limestonelike substance called tosca. The level at which the skull was found was 11 meters (36 feet) below the bed of the river La Plata (Hrdlicˇ ka 1912, p. 318).
The workers who found the skull gave it to Mr. Junor, their supervisor. In the opinion of Argentine paleontologist Florentino Ameghino (1909, p. 108), the skull belonged to a Pliocene precursor of Homo sapiens. He called this precursor Diprothomo platensis. But according to Ales Hrdlicˇ ka (1912, p. 332) of the Smithsonian Institution, the skull was just like that of modern humans.
The skull was found in what Ales Hrdlicˇ ka (1912, p. 321) called “the uppermost portion of the Pre-Ensenadean stratum.” According to modern geological opinion, the Pre-Ensenadan stratum should be at least
1.0–1.5 million years old. Even at 1 million years, the presence of a fully modern human skull anywhere in the world—what to speak of South America—would be unexpected.
Bailey Willis, the geologist who accompanied Hrdlicˇ ka on his expedition to Argentina, offered some vague, unfounded speculations about how the skull could have arrived in the rudder pit. For his part, Hrdlicˇ ka thought the fact that the skull was modern in shape was enough to rule out any great age for it. Hrdlicˇ ka’s prejudice is evident in the following statement (Hrdlicˇ ka 1912): “The antiquity . . . of any human skeletal remains which do not present marked differences from those of modern man may be regarded, on morphologic grounds, as only insignificant geologically, not reaching in time, in all probability, beyond the modern, still unfinished, geologic formations.” In other words, even if anatomically modern human bones were found in geological strata millions of years old, Hrdlicˇ ka would not accept them as being that old. According to his logic, evolution is always happening, and any such bones millions of years old should, therefore, be quite different from those of modern humans. If they are not different, they are not old.
In 1913, Dr. Hans Reck, of Berlin University, found an anatomically modern human skeleton in Bed II of Olduvai Gorge. This would make the anatomically modern skeleton over 1 million years old. Aware of the possibility of intrusive burial, Reck (1914) carefully examined the sediments around the skeleton and determined that there was absolutely no sign of disturbance. Louis Leakey was initially skeptical of the discovery. However, after seeing the skeleton in a Munich museum, still embedded in its matrix of rock, and visiting the site in Africa, he changed his mind and agreed with Reck that the skeleton really belonged to Bed II. Other scientists, however, maintained their opposition. Reck and Leakey later changed their minds (L. Leakey et al. 1931), and agreed that the skeleton had been buried into Bed II at a later time. This turnaround is quite inexplicable, considering their earlier testimony that very close inspection had shown absolutely no sign that the skeleton had been buried in Bed II after the deposition of Bed II. During World War II, most of the skeleton was lost. After the war, a scientist did a carbon 14 test on some small fragments of bone he thought belonged to the skeleton. This test gave an age of about 17,000 years. But there are several problems with this date. First of all, it is not clear that the bone fragments he tested really belonged to Reck’s skeleton. Second, even if the bone fragments did belong to Reck’s skeleton, they could have been contaminated with recent carbon during the several decades they had lain exposed in the museum. This would have caused the carbon 14 test to yield a falsely young date.