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Date: | Fri, 6 Apr 2001 02:28:20 -0400 |
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Before this anecdote slips out of human memory, I want to add this fantasy to
the list. Back in the 1950s, several archaeologists believed geological
deposits at Texas Street in San Diego contained hominid stone working sites.
At one point, C.Vance Haynes and other illunimaries visited the site and
declared it a natural rock pile. Then, the University of San Diego initiated
a dig there in the 1970s. When challenged to produce evidence at San Diego
State University, the professor in question arrived with a box of rocks and a
box of genuine Early Milling Archaic artifacts. He place the real artifacts
on a table closest to the audience and the rocks on a table behind. He never
explained the relevance of the table of real artifacts, but went on to
lecture on his theory of Hominid stone workshops at Texas Street and the
"Buchanan Site." Afterwards, I questioned him closely about the front table.
You see, the audience mobbed that table and assumed those artifacts were the
ones he dug at Texas Street. At the exit door, he quietly admitted those were
from another site for comparison with his "Hominid tools," but he never told
the audience the distinction. Most of the people departed the room thinking
those tools were what he dug up. A few years later, someone published a book
called "Broken Stones" in which he advanced the theory in print. These sort
of smoke and mirrors presentations are really amazing.
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