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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 77: Sep-Oct 1991 |
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Pliocene sculptures or freaks of nature?
We have at hand Number 20 of Archaeologische Berichten, 1990, 108 pp. This thick booklet bears the subtitle Picture Book of the Stone Age. And a picture book it is, with hundreds of drawings interspersed with 26 pasted-in color photos. The text is English.
What do these photos and drawings show? Basically, they portray stones and pepples picked out of gravel pits and similar accumulations of rocky debris that look like human heads, ape heads, primitive tools, etc. Some of the pebbles do indeed resemble humanmade artifacts. (See accompanying sketch.) Most, though, require some imagination. The import of these artifacts, if that is what they really are, comes home when one learns that they come from deposits that are millions of years old! If any of these pebbles are really human-made, anthropology will be stood on its head.
Since the present report is the 20th in a series, one can assume that the contributors to Archaeologische Berich ten have amassed incredibly large collections of ancient stones and pebbles that "look like" artifacts.
Comment. Similar purported artifacts have been found at the controversial Calico Hills site, California, in Pleistocene deposits that may be 100,000 years old. And don't forget that "Face on Mars"!