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have reported seeing live wildmen, dead wildmen, and footprints. They have alsocatalogued thousands of reports from ordinary people who have seen wildmen, as well assimilar reports from historical records.Some might question why we would put together a book like The Hidden History ofthe Human Race, unless we had some underlying purpose. Indeed, there is some underlyingpurpose.Richard Thompson and I are members of the Bhakti vedanta Institute, a branch ofthe International Society for Krishna Consciousness that studies the relationship betweenmodern science and the world view expressed in the Vedic literature of India. From theVedic literature, we derive the idea that the human race is of great antiquity. For thepurpose of conducting systematic research into the existing scientific literature on humanantiquity, we expressed the Vedic idea in the form of a theory that various humanlike andapelike beings have coexisted for long periods of time.That our theoretical outlook is derived from the Vedic literature should notdisqualify it. Theory selection can come from many sources—a private inspiration,previous theories, a suggestion from a friend, a movie, and so on. What really matters is nota theory's source but its ability to account for observations.Because of space considerations, we were not able to develop in this volume ourideas about an alternative to current theories of human origins. We are therefore planning asecond volume relating our extensive research results in this area to our Vedic sourcematerial.At this point, I would like to say something about my collaboration with RichardThompson. Richard is a scientist by training, a mathematician who has published refereedarticles and books in the fields of mathematical biology, remote sensing from satellites,geology, and physics. I am not a scientist by training. Since 1977, I have been a writer andeditor for books and magazines published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.In 1984, Richard asked his assistant Stephen Bernath to begin collecting material onhuman origins and antiquity. In 1986, Richard asked me to take that material and organizeit into a book.As I reviewed the material provided to me by Stephen, I was struck by the verysmall number of reports from 1859, when Darwin published The Origin of Species, until1894, when Dubois published his report on Java man. Curious about this, I asked Stephento obtain some anthropology books from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.In these books, including an early edition of Marcellin Boule's Fossil Men, I found highlynegative reviews of numerous reports from the period in question. By tracing out footnotes,we dug up a few samples of these reports. Most of them, by nineteenth-century scientists,described incised bones, stone tools, and anatomically modern skeletal remains encounteredin unexpectedly old geological contexts. The reports were of high quality, answering manypossible objections. This encouraged me to make a more systematic search.Digging up this buried literary evidence required another three years. Stephen

Bernath and I obtained rare conference volumes and journals from around the world, andtogether we translated the material into English. Writing the manuscript from the assembledmaterial took another couple of years. Throughout the entire period of research and writing,I had almost daily discussions with Richard about the significance of the material and howbest to present it.Stephen obtained much of the material in Chapter 6 from Ron Calais, who kindlysent us many Xeroxes of original reports from his archives. Virginia Steen-McIntyre waskind enough to supply us with her correspondence on the dating of the Hueyatlaco, Mexico,site. We also had useful discussions about stone tools with Ruth D. Simpson of the SanBernardino County Museum and about shark teeth marks on bone with Thomas A. Demereof the San Diego Natural History Museum.This book could not have been completed without the varied services of ChristopherBeetle, a computer science graduate of Brown University, who came to the BhaktivedantaInstitute in San Diego in 1988.For overseeing the design and layout of this abridged edition, Richard and I thankAlister Taylor. The jacket design is the work of Yamaraja Dasa. The illustrations oppositethe first page of the introduction and are the much-appreciated work of Miles Triplett,Beverly Symes, David Smith, Sigalit Binyaminy, Susan Fritz, Barbara Cantatore, JosephFranklin, and Michael Best also helped in the production of this book.Richard and I would especially like to thank the international trustees of theBhaktivedanta Book Trust, past and present, for their generous support for the research,writing, and publication of this book.Finally, we encourage readers to bring to our attention any additional evidence thatmay be of interest to us, especially for inclusion in future editions of this book.Correspondence may be addressed to us at Govardhan Hill Publishing P. O. Box 52,Badger, CA 93603.Michael A. Cremo Pacific Beach, California, March 26, 1994Part IANOMALOUS EVIDENCETHE SONG OF THE RED LION: DARWIN AND HUMAN EVOLUTIONOne evening in 1871, an association of learned British gentlemen, the Red Lions,gathered in Edinburgh, Scotland, to feed happily together and entertain each other withhumorous songs and speeches. Lord Neaves, known well for his witty lyrics, stood up

before the assembled Lions and sang twelve stanzas he had composed on "The Origin ofSpecies a la Darwin." Among them:An Ape with a pliable thumb and big brain,When the gift of gab he had managed to gain,As Lord of Creation established his reignWhich Nobody can Deny!His listeners responded, as customary among the Red Lions, by gently roaring andwagging their coattails.Just a dozen years after Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859,growing numbers of scientists and other educated persons considered it impossible, indeedlaughable, to suppose that humans were anything other than the modified descendants of anancestral line of apelike creatures. In The Origin of Species itself, Darwin touched butbriefly on the question of human beginnings, noting in the final pages only that "Light willbe thrown on the origin of man and his history." Yet despite Darwin's caution, it was clearthat he did not see humanity as an exception to his theory that one species evolves fromanother.DARWIN SPEAKSIt was not until 1871 that Darwin came out with a book (Descent of Man)expressing his detailed views on human evolution. Explaining his delay, Darwin wrote:"During many years I collected notes on the origin or descent of man, without any intentionof publishing on the subject, but rather with the determination not to publish, as I thoughtthat I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views. It seemed to me sufficient toindicate, in the first edition of my 'Origin of Species,' that by this work 'light would bethrown on the origin of man and his history;' and this implies that man must be includedwith other organic beings in any general conclusion respecting his manner of appearance onthis earth."In Descent of Man, Darwin explicitly denied any special status for the humanspecies. "We thus learn," he said, "that man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped,probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World." It was a bold statement,yet one lacking the most convincing kind of proof—fossils of species transitional betweenthe ancient apes and modern humans.Aside from two poorly dated Neanderthal skulls from Germany and Gibraltar, and afew other little-reported finds of modern morphology, there were no discoveries of hominidfossil remains. This fact soon became ammunition to those who were revolted by Darwin'ssuggestion that humans had apelike ancestors. Where, they asked, were the fossils to proveit?Today, however, almost without exception, modern paleoanthropologists believethat they have fulfilled the expectations of Darwin by positive discoveries of fossil humanancestors in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere.

APPEARANCE OF THE HOMINIDSIn this book, we take the modern system of geological ages (Table 1.1) for granted.We use it as a fixed frame of reference for our study of the history of ancient humans andnear humans. This is for convenience. We acknowledge that our findings might requireserious reconsideration of the geological time scale.According to modern views, the first apelike beings appeared in the Oligoceneperiod, which began about 38 million years ago. The first apes thought to be on the line tohumans appeared in the Miocene, which extends from 5 to 25 million years ago. Theseinclude Dryopithecus.Then came the Pliocene period. During the Pliocene, the first hominids, or erectwalking humanlike primates, are said to appear in the fossil record. The earliest knownhominid is Australopithecus, the southern ape, and is dated back as far as 4 million years, inthe Pliocene.This near human, say scientists, stood between 4 and 5 feet tall and had a cranialcapacity of between 300 and 600 cubic centimeters (cc). From the neck down,Australopithecus is said to have been very similar to modern humans, whereas the headdisplayed some apelike and some human features.One branch of Australopithecus is thought to have given rise to Homo habilisaround 2 million years ago, at the beginning of the Pleistocene period. Homo habilisappears similar to Australopithecus except that his cranial capacity is said to have beenlarger, between 600 and 750 cc.Homo habilis is thought to have given rise to Homo erectus (the species thatincludes Java man and Beijing man) around 1.5 million years ago. Homo erectus is said tohave stood between 5 and 6 feet tall and had a cranial capacity varying between 700 and1,300 cc. Most paleoanthropologists now believe that from the neck down, Homo erectuswas, like Australopithecus and Homo habilis, almost the same as modern humans. Theforehead, however, sloped back from behind massive brow ridges, the jaws and teeth werelarge, and the lower jaw lacked a chin. It is believed that Homo erectus lived in Africa,Asia, and Europe until about 200,000 years ago.Paleoanthropologists believe that anatomically modern humans (Homo sapienssapiens) emerged gradually from Homo erectus. Somewhere around 300,000 or 400,000years ago, the first early Homo sapiens or archaic Homo sapiens are said to have appeared.They are described as having a cranial capacity almost as large as that of modern humans,yet still manifesting to a lesser degree some of the characteristics of Homo erectus, such asthe thick skull, receding forehead, and large brow ridges. Examples of this category are thefinds from Swanscombe in England, Steinheim in Germany, and Fontechevade and Aragoin France. Because these skulls also possess, to some degree, Neanderthal characteristics,they are also classified as pre-Neanderthal types. Most authorities now postulate that bothanatomically modern humans and the classic Western European Neanderthals evolved from

the pre-Neanderthal or early Homo sapiens types of hominids.In the early part of the twentieth century, some scientists advocated the view thatthe Neanderthals of the last glacial period, known as the classic Western EuropeanNeanderthals, were the direct ancestors of modern human beings. They had brains largerthan those of Homo sapiens sapiens. Their faces and jaws were much larger, and theirforeheads were lower, sloping back from behind large brow ridges. Neanderthal remainsare found in Pleistocene deposits ranging from 30,000 to 150,000 years old. However, thediscovery of early Homo sapiens in deposits far older than 150,000 years effectivelyremoved the classic Western European Neanderthals from the direct line of descent leadingfrom Homo erectus to modern humans.The type of human known as Cro-Magnon appeared in Europe approximately30,000 years ago, and they were anatomically modern. Scientists used to say thatanatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens first appeared around 40,000 years ago, butnow many authorities, in light of discoveries in South Africa and elsewhere, say that theyappeared 100,000 or more years ago.The cranial capacity of modern humans varies from 1,000 cc to 2,000 cc, theaverage being around 1,350 cc. As can be readily observed today among modern humans,there is no correlation between brain size and intelligence. There are highly intelligentpeople with 1,000 cc brains and morons with 2,000 cc brains.Exactly where, when, or how Australopithecus gave rise to Homo habilis, or Homohabilis gave rise to Homo erectus, or Homo erectus gave rise to modern humans is notexplained in present accounts of human origins. However, most paleoanthropologists agreethat only anatomically modern humans came to the New World. The earlier stages ofevolution, from Australopithecus on up, are all said to have taken place in the Old World.The first arrival of human beings in the New World is generally said to have occurred some12,000 years ago, with some scientists willing to grant a Late Pleistocene date of 25,000years.Even today there are many gaps in the presumed record of human descent. Forexample, there is an almost total absence of fossils linking the Miocene apes such asDryopithecus with the Pliocene ancestors of modern apes and humans, especially within thespan of time between 4 and 8 million years ago.Perhaps it is true that fossils will someday be found that fill in the gaps. Yet, andthis is extremely important, there is no reason to suppose that the fossils that turn up will besupportive of evolutionary theory. What if, for example, fossils of anatomically modernhumans turned up in strata older than those in which Dryopithecus were found? Even ifanatomically modern humans were found to have lived a million years ago, 4 million yearsafter the Late Miocene disappearance of Dryopithecus, that would be enough to throw outthe current accounts of the origin of humankind.In fact, such evidence has already been found, but it has since been suppressed orconveniently forgotten. Much of it came to light in the decades immediately after Darwinpublished The Origin of Species, before which there had been no notable finds except

Neanderthal man. In the first years of Darwinism, there was no clearly established story ofhuman descent to be defended, and professional scientists made and reported manydiscoveries that now would never make it into the pages of any journal more academicallyrespectable than the National Enquirer.Most of these fossils and artifacts were unearthed before the discovery by EugeneDubois of Java man, the first proto-human hominid between Dryopithecus and modernhumans. Java man was found in Middle Pleistocene deposits generally given an age of800,000 years. The discovery became a benchmark. Henceforth, scientists would not expectto find fossils or artifacts of anatomically modern humans in deposits of equal or greaterage. If they did, they (or someone wiser) concluded that this was impossible and foundsome way to discredit the find as a mistake, an illusion, or a hoax. Before Java man,however, reputable nineteenth-century scientists found a number of examples of anatomically modern human skeletal remains in very ancient strata. And they also found largenumbers of stone tools of various types, as well as animal bones bearing signs of humanaction.SOME PRINCIPLES OF EPISTEMOLOGYBefore beginning our survey of rejected and accepted paleoanthropologicalevidence, we shall outline a few epistemological rules that we have tried to follow.Epistemology is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as "the study or theory of theorigin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge." When engaged in the study of scientificevidence, it is important to keep the nature, methods, and limits of knowledge in mind;otherwise one is prone to fall into illusion.Paleoanthropological evidence has certain key limitations that should be pointedout. First, the observations that go into paleoanthropological facts tend to involve rarediscoveries that cannot be duplicated at will. For example, some scientists in this field havebuilt great reputations on the basis of a few famous discoveries, and others, the vastmajority, have spent their whole careers without making a single significant find.Second, once a discovery is made, key elements of the evidence are destroyed, andknowledge of these elements depends solely on the testimony of the discoverers. Forexample, one of the most important aspects of a fossil is its stratigraphic position. However,once the fossil is removed from the earth, the direct evidence indicating its position isdestroyed, and we simply have to depend on the excavator's testimony as to where he or shefound it. Of course, one may argue that chemical or other features of the fossil may indicateits place of origin. This is true in some cases but not in others. And in making suchjudgments, we also have to depend on reports concerning the chemical and other physicalproperties of the strata in which the fossil was allegedly found.Persons making important discoveries sometimes cannot find their way back to thesites of those discoveries. After a few years, the sites are almost inevitably destroyed,perhaps by erosion, by complete paleoanthropological excavation, or by commercialdevelopments (involving quarrying, building construction, and so forth). Even modern

excavations involving meticulous recording of details destroy the very evidence they arerecording, leaving one with nothing but written testimony to back up many key assertions.And many important discoveries, even today, involve very scanty recording of key details.Thus a person desiring to verify paleoanthropological reports will find it verydifficult to gain access to the real facts, even if he or she is able to travel to the site of adiscovery. And, of course, limitations of time and money make it impossible to personallyexamine more than a small percentage of the totality of important paleoanthropologicalsites.A third problem is that the facts of paleoanthropology are seldom (if ever) simple. Ascientist may testify that the fossils were clearly weathering out of a certain EarlyPleistocene layer. B

The unabridged edition of Forbidden Archeology is 952 pages long. It thus presents quite a challenge to many readers. Richard L. Thompson and I therefore decided to bring out The Hidden History of the Human Race —a shorter, more readable, and more affo