Tim,

The case to which I referred in the discussion of old academics squashing new 
ideas had to do with Emma Lou Davis's investigation of China Lake (Mohave 
Desert, California) between 1970 and 1979. I believe the year we dug the trench 
through the mound would have been 1973. I personally used a rock hammer and 
marlin spike to chip through the cemented lacustrine layers that sealed the camel 
bones. My recollection is the femurs exhibited spiral breakage and that we 
kept finding small, chalky white, marble-like balls that Emma Lou had us put in 
a coffee can. We also found some water-worn obsidian flakes (could have been 
basalt, it was a while ago ye know). We carefully mapped, photographed, and 
recovered those pieces that were not embedded in the sidewalls. We then reburied 
the trench (dropping shiny 1973 U.S. cent pennies to mark our visit). Emma Lou 
packed us out around 5:00 pm (we had been there since 5:00 am) and we drove 
home (a 5-hour trip to San Diego). 

Emma Lou had a Werner Gren grant and matched it with her own money. She first 
tried to radiocarbon date the camel bone, but no organics survived (ancient 
marrow extraction did not help). When I visited her lab, she would show letters 
from Werner Gren and, I think SAA, who expressed interest in publishing her 
data. When the C14 failed, she sent camel bone and the coffee can of chalky 
white balls to a lab for Uranium Thorium dating. I was there when the guy 
telephoned to say, "Davy (her nick-name), we ran UT dates on the calcium carbonate 
that formed on those little rocks. What should we do with the rocks?" Emma Lou 
replied, "Rocks...what rocks?" To which the fellow replied, "tiny flat rocks 
with sharp edges that were inside the chalky white balls." A few weeks later, 
she received a package and inside that a box of tiny stone flakes (from the UT 
job). For all the world, they looked (to me) just like small percussion flakes. 
I recall Emma Lou had a number of telephone calls from the Friends of the 
Pliestocene, Scotty McNeish, for example. When she got a letter with the UT date 
of about 20,000 years, she put a field report together and shipped it off to 
Werner Gren. They refused to publish it, as did SAA. Emma Lou expressed 
anguish, frustration, and anger, but it was to no avail. 

I am assuming all her artifacts, field notes, photographs, and other data are 
reposing in the Matarango Museum in the Mohave Desert. She died in 1988 
without ever publishing that field report. Of course, it was not Werner Gren who 
squashed her publication. I expect you know the folks who decided what could be 
published back in those days.

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.