Forbidden Archeology

In 1993, in association with the Bhaktivedanta Institute of ISKCON, Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson co-wrote Forbidden Archeology. A promotional website for Michael Cremo states that "modern man did not evolve from ape man, but instead has co-existed with apes for millions of years", and that the scientific establishment has suppressed the fossil evidence of extreme human antiquity. Cremo identifies as a "Vedic archeologist", since he believes his findings support the story of humanity described in the Vedas. Cremo's work has garnered interest from Hindu creationists, paranormalists and theosophists. He says a knowledge filter (confirmation bias) is the cause of this suppression.

Forbidden Archeology has attracted attention from some mainstream scholars as well as Hindu creationists and paranormalists. Scholars of mainstream archeology and paleoanthropology have described the work as pseudoscience.

Overview

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as Bhaktivedanta movement or Hare Krishna after the well known mantra), is a monotheistic variant of the Hindu Bhakti movement. The movements 'intellectual' center,the Bhaktivedanta Institute in San Diego, relies on Vedic Science from the sacred text, the Rig Veda. In this Vedic approach, the universe is said to be 311,040 billion years old, with periods of total destruction and recreation occuring in a cyclical fashion.

The book's central claim is that humans have lived on the earth for millions, or billions, of years, and that the scientific establishment has suppressed the fossil evidence of extreme human antiquity. Much of the material used and many of the quotes given are taken from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. As well relying on older more unreliable scientific work, they also relied on the Vedas to make their arguments. In contrast to the Christianity-based creation Science movement, this book's style of creationism is based on steady state type of belief which is viewed as being compatible with the Vedas, namely that humans have existed in their current state for hundreds of millions of years. Although markedly different in the specifics of the belief from Christian creationism, the work parallels it in its methods.

Academic analysis

Forbidden Archeology has been critiqued by a number of academics in a variety of disciplines. Cremo and Thompson did not submit any of his material in support of his claims for peer review through scientific journals, thus the mass of claims about archaeology would make confirmation or refutation of all the material very difficult to do, requiring a mixture of experts from various discplines. In one example, of a claimed marked bone on pg. 38-40, the discussion of the context of the cuts is largely overlooked while the book focusses on the plant and animal remains found in the same dig. Electron microscope data, drawings and pictures are also missing, and the material is referenced to private communication. Nothing is provided to confirm the bone actually exists.

A significant fraction of the quotes used are taken from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, in one example, rather than an a contemporaneous quotation, a quote from the first half of the 20th century is used to try and counter individuals from the second half of the 20th century on page 553.

In the book, the authors also use the rumours of Bigfoot and Abominable Snowmen to put forward the notion that reports of "ape-people" are evidence of concurrent existence of humans and other hominids of the genus Homo, rather than describing it with the long tradition of human-like creatures within folklore (such as Grendel in the work Beowulf).

Tarzia

Wade Tarzia, who is a researcher in Comparative Literature and Folklore, viewed the book as a good example piece for researchers studying the "growth, folklore, and rhetoric of pseudoscience" as it is a high quality example of pseudoscientific writing as it superficially replicates scientific work fairly well. Tarzia noted how the book fails to test simpler hypotheses before proceeding to propose more complex ones (Occam's razor). For example, the book attributes the Laetoli footprints, which are viewed as by hominids, to modern humans existing 3.6 million years because they look like human feet. This is made instead of the simpler explanation that Bipedalism did not need further adaptation and thus the early ancestors species to humans walked much like modern humans (Australopithecus afarensis).

While commenting that different disciplinary experts would need to look at the work to judge if it was completely without merit, Tarzia is of the opinion that the irrelevant details, lack of much of the important contextualisation, large leaps in reasoning and special pleading throughout, would make it difficult for any expert to find the good proposals. Tarzia also viewed the book as cherry-picking outdated evidence (often from the turn of the 19th century) that supports the authors' position, while ignoring more recent information that refutes or challenges the claims made. Tarzia believes that this use of very old material in the book is exemplified by the use of archaeology from the 1860s-70s to try and counter more recent work.

Wodak and Oldroyd

Historians of science Jo Wodak and David Oldroyd published a 23-page review article "'Vedic Creationism': A Further Twist to the Evolution Debate" in Social Studies of Science. The review points out positive aspects of the book, e.g. that "Forbidden Archeology brings to attention many interesting issues that have not received much consideration from historians; and the authors' detailed examination of the early literature is certainly stimulating and raises questions of considerable interest, both historically and from the perspective of practitioners of sociology of scientific knowledge." They also write that "On the whole, the work of recent palaeoanthropologists -- in terms of both recent finds and reviews of current theory -- is omitted from the discussion. FA's presentation means that the reader is not offered a thorough review of the relevant evidence, despite the book's great length...To attempt to resurrect an old paradigm the way they do, by analyzing outmoded scientific texts, is one of the recognized marks of 'pseudo-science'."

Feder

Anthropologist Kenneth L. Feder wrote in his review of Forbidden Archeology: "While decidedly antievolutionary in perspective, this work is not the ordinary variety of anti-evolutionism in form, content, or style. In distinction to the usual brand of such writing, the authors use original sources and the book is well written. Further, the overall tone of the work is far superior to that exhibited in ordinary creationist literature."

Morrow

Tom Morrow, writing in Reports of the National Center for Science Education, noted that "FA devotes 400 pages to analyzing anomalous stone tools depicted in obscure literature over the past 150 years. Worse, these specimens no longer exist.". Saying many critics have complained that the book bombards the reader with "abundantly useless data," Tom Morrow states that a large proportion of the book is devoted to analysis of outdated documentation, in obscure literature, of specimens of anomalous stone tools. Since the specimens no longer exist, he says, the book often compensates by providing numerous pages of drawings taken from their original sources. He also cited the earlier review of the book by archaeologist Kenneth Feder saying that the drawings are "absolutely useless" because one can't tell whether the drawings are accurate or drawn to scale.

Groves

Anthropologist Colin Groves states that 19th-century finds were generally "found by accident and by amateurs", and were thus generally lacking proper documentation of crucial contextual information, and that the dates assigned were therefore suspect. Cremo and Thompson fail to take account of this, he says, and seem to want to accord equal value to all finds. Groves also states that their discussion of radiometric dating fails to take account of the on-going refinement of these methods, and the resulting fact that later results are more reliable than earlier ones. He concludes that the book is only "superficially scholarly".

Murray

Archaeologist Tim Murray wrote in his review of Forbidden Archeology: "I have no doubt that there will be some who will read this book and profit from it. Certainly it provides the historian of archeology with a useful compendium of case studies in the history and sociology of scientific knowledge, which can be used to foster debate within archaeology about how to describe the epistemology of one's discipline." He also commented on the similarities in argument with those of Christian Creationists: "This is a piece of ‘Creation Science’ which, while not based on the need to promote a Christian alternative, manifests many of the same types of argument: first, an attempt to characterize the opposition as motivated by the need to preserve their view of the world rather than a desire to practice unfettered inquiry; secondly, to explain the currently marginal position of your alternative as being the result of prejudice, conspiracy and manipulation rather than of any fault of the theory itself; thirdly, to present the opposition (in this case mainstream palaeoanthropology and quarternary [sic] archaeology) as being united as a ‘secret college’ to manipulate the public mind and to exclude non-professionals from being able to control science for the benefit of all."

Further writings and impact

Cremo continued the theme of Forbidden Archeology in his later books, such as in Forbidden Archeology's Impact (1998). His book Human Devolution (2003), like Forbidden Archeology, claims that man has existed for millions of years, attempts to prove this by citing, as Meera Nanda puts it, "every possible research into the paranormal ever conducted anywhere to 'prove' the truth of holist Vedic cosmology which proposes the presence of a spiritual element in all matter (which takes different forms, thereby explaining the theory of 'devolution')."

The Indian magazine Frontline called Cremo and Thompson "the intellectual force driving Vedic creationism in America".

The Mysterious Origins of Man

Main article: The Mysterious Origins of Man

In 1996 Thompson and Cremo appeared on the NBC special The Mysterious Origins of Man, which was based upon the book and which was similarly criticized by the scientific community.

Further reading

• Lepper, Bradley T. (1996). "Hidden History, Hidden Agenda". Skeptic. 4 (1): 98–100.