Forbidden Archeologist: The Atlantis Rising Magazine by Michael A. Cremo

Forbidden Archeologist: The Atlantis Rising Magazine Reviews

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  Greg Nigh

  Michael Cremo wears his bias on his sleeve. He has been a practicing Hare Krishna for over 20 years. He has no formal training in archeology. He simply took an interest in the sacred texts of his faith, and those texts consistently referred to humans being on the earth for millions of years. He set out to see if there was evidence of this, and indeed there was.
  
  Documentation of what he finds is quite meticulous. There is little room to critique him on the grounds of shoddy research. In addition to citing hordes of primary descriptions of these archeological anomalies, he has traveled the world to see hundreds of these sites and artifacts first hand. And what he reports is truly astonishing. His interest is in remains of what are widely agreed upon as *modern* humans (Homo sapiens), in sediments that are dated through multiple methods at hundreds of thousands and even millions of years old. Keep in mind that the orthodox chronology of human evolution puts modern humans as emerging about 250,000 years ago, at the earliest.
  
  Every chapter in this book is an essay written for Atlantis Rising magazine. I didn't have the fortitude to read his more academic tome, Forbidden Archeology, so chose this book of essays instead. For those who want to know the gist as well as the narrative context for each skeletal find, I suspect this book is a very accessible substitute for the longer version.
  
  For instance, Chapter 14 details his presentation at the Darwin Museum, where he described the discovery and recording in 1887 of modern human remains found in sediment of the Eocene era. That's over 33 million years old. And in Chapter 25 he details multiple lines of evidence that anatomically modern humans were hunting mastadons as long ago as 375,000 years. Every chapter is a discovery that is tied to others. Each time such findings are made, the community of archeologists make heroic effort to come up with explanations of how modern human remains got *placed* in these old sediments. The problem is that the remains are most often embedded in sediments along side tools and bones of animals known to have only lived some millions of years ago.
  
  Chapter 18 discusses the modern (homo sapiens) human femur found on the island of Java in sediment dated at 800,000 years old. One year earlier and about 15 yards from the femur, in the same sediment, a skullcap was discovered that had a distinctly Homo erectus shape. More perplexing, across a large stretch of Pacific Ocean on Flores Island, in sediments dated at the same 800,000 years, archeologists found bones that appeared to be modern humans, as well as tools. But current thinking is that modern humans wouldn't appear on the scene for another 600,000 years. In addition, deliberate sea crossings didn't happen, orthodoxy says, until just about 50,000 years ago by modern humans going from SE Asia to Australia. So the bones found on Flores Island were declared, in spite of their modern form, to be Homo erectus. How to explain the ocean crossing by the landlubbing Homo erectus? No answer offered.
  
  Cremo proposes the answer that the orthodox archeology community can't: anatomically modern humans traveled by boat from Java to Flores Island, bringing tools with them, 800,000 years ago. The findings on Java demonstrate that modern humans and Homo erectus lived in the same space at the same time, 800,000 years ago. They co-habitated. Like using charge instead of invisible dark matter to explain the shape of galaxies, Cremo's hypothesis accounts for the facts, leaves no loose ends hanging, and is consistent with the large body of evidence he presents throughout the rest of the book.
  
  Why not bring these findings into the larger fold of thinking about human evolution? Because they don't conform and fit with the reigning model of How Things Are. If (to give one more example) the modern human skeleton found in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania - in sediment dated at 1.5 million years - actually is a modern human, then the whole story of human evolution is in need of revision. Cremo isn't basing his case on a single finding, or even a few. He has documented hundreds of these anomalies, and he has traveled the world speaking at conferences and presenting his case.
  
  I highly recommend Cremo's book for two reasons. The first is the compelling strength of evidence he brings together. It is fascinating to consider that perhaps modern humans have been around for millions of years. If true, there are a few evolutionary biologists who are going to be upset. The second reason to read the books is to see, in yet another field of science, how orthodoxy becomes mandatory. Anomalous data, no matter how compelling, has to be denied or given uncomfortable dismissals to preserve the reigning model. The pattern repeats, from particle physics, to cosmology and into archeology.
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  Tia

  Since I don’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution, this book is really my thing.
  The first two chapters are awesome, but later seems a bit repetitive.
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  Prince Namor

  Very good so far...
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  David Elkin

  I would rate a 4.5 if I could. Cremo is an engaging writer that makes you want to continue reading. He is not a tin foil raving loony, but a very gifted author who has a couple of critical points to make.
  
  1. His statements about knowledge filtration is very correct. We humans had a tendency to want the evidence to fit our beliefs. It happens in politics, religion, economics, social activity and in science.
  2. There is a number of anomalies in the fossil evidence of ancient man. Do I believe that homo sapiens have been around for millions year. No, but I also believe science should look at the exceptions that are out there. Cremo proves that this is not happening. Remember that Galileo was forced to recant his theories on pain of death.
  
  I don't think that that his theory "A VEDIC ALTERNATIVE TO DARWIN'S THEORY" is correct, but I have not studied it in detail. This book does make you think. He really is a strong believer in intelligent design, just not from a fundamental Christian viewpoint. I hope to read "The Hidden History of the Human Race" soon. I have not giving up on Darwin, but I must admit he has made me rethink much of the theory.
  
  Highly recommended to free thinkers and inquisitive minds. Only thing that I found I did not like was some of the repetitive statements in the book, though since it is a collection of articles he wrote it is understandable.