In the midst of the nineteenth century, miners delving into the depths of Table Mountain and other regions of the California gold mining area stumbled upon a remarkable find—an abundance of stone artifacts and human remains within their tunnels.
These intriguing discoveries are believed to originate from Eocene-era strata, dating back approximately 38 to 55 million years, as revealed by the esteemed government geologist, Dr. J. D. Whitney of California.
A Controversial Revelation
The groundbreaking book, “The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California,” published by Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1880, documented these findings. However, the scientific discourse at the time rejected this research due to its challenge to Darwinist views on human origins. This period, marked by the 1849 gold rush, witnessed the revelation of gold within the gravels of the Sierra Nevada Mountains’ riverbeds, drawing countless adventurers to towns like Brandy City, Last Chance, and Lost Camp.
The Quest for Gold
Initially, miners would pan the streambed gravels, extracting nuggets and flakes. As gold-mining corporations allocated more resources, they began boring shafts into mountainsides, relentlessly pursuing the auriferous gravel deposits wherever they led. Others employed high-pressure water jets to cleanse the gold-bearing gravels from slopes, leading to the discovery of numerous stone artifacts and human bones by the diligent miners.
Challenging Assumptions
J. D. Whitney’s findings shed light on the significance of these discoveries. While dating surface deposits and artifacts from hydraulic mining proved challenging, those found within deer mine shafts or tunnels provided better dating opportunities. Whitney proposed that the geological data suggested the auriferous rocks were at most of Pliocene age. Modern geologists, however, believe that some gravel deposits may trace back to the Eocene period.
The Geological Tapestry
Several shafts were driven in Tuolumne County, traversing the deep strata of Table Mountain and ultimately reaching the gold-bearing rocks. In some cases, shafts extended beneath the latite for hundreds of yards. Gravels situated atop the bedrock span a range of 33.2 million to 56 million years, while other gravels may be as old as 9 million to 55 million years.
William B. Holmes, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, remarked on Whitney’s conclusions, stating that if Whitney had possessed a comprehensive understanding of human evolution as known today, he would have approached his claims with more caution, despite the substantial evidence supporting them.
A Complex Narrative
These findings challenge the notion that facts must be disregarded when they fail to align with preconceived ideas. Despite the resistance faced, Whitney’s artifacts are still showcased at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. This episode echoes how Darwinism and other prevailing ideologies influenced the treatment of archaeological sites such as Hueyatlaco in Mexico. In the 1970s, Cynthia Irwin Williams led a team of archaeologists who unearthed stone tools near animal bones, shedding light on ancient hunting practices at Hueyatlaco.
Collaborating with geologists like Virginia Steen McIntyre, they employed various dating methods to determine the age of the site. These techniques included zircon fission tracks dating, uranium series dating on butchered bones, zircon tgask dating, and tephra-hydration dating on volcanic crystals. The archaeological community began to acknowledge the site’s age, driven by the belief that no one could have crafted such artifacts 250,000 years ago anywhere on Earth, and that North America had not been inhabited until approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years ago.
