“Dr Cuozzo's conclusions are that Neanderthals,
the brutish 'cavemen' depicted in movies and textbooks, were post-Flood
(Noah's Flood) humans”.
I have only very
recently become aware of the extensive research on Neanderthal skulls by US
orthodontist, Dr. Jack Cuozzo, and the important conclusions that he has
reached.
One writer who
has given Cuozzo’s findings some positive airing is Creationist researcher and speaker, Anne Habermehl, whose bombshell
article on Babel and the geography of early Genesis I had cause to draw
attention to in my:
Tightening
the Geography and Archaeology for Early Genesis
Habermehl this
time, in her article, “Those Enigmatic Neanderthals. What Are They Saying? Are
We Listening?”, written in consultation with “maverick” Dr. Jack Cuozzo https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/neanderthal/those-enigmatic-neanderthals/
has explained that Cuozzo’s radical conclusions are
not the mainstream Creationist view:
The Root of the Disagreement: Cuozzo versus Lubenow
Currently, the most widely accepted creationist view
of the Neanderthals is that they were very early nomadic humans, probably one
of the tribes that departed from Babel in the dispersion (for example, Oard
2003b, Robertson and Sarfati 2003). Their unique skull characteristics were
possibly the result of family genetic traits and/or poor diet and lack of
sunshine during the Ice Age, or perhaps disease. This is essentially the view
of the Neanderthals that is described by Marvin Lubenow in his influential
book, Bones of Contention (Lubenow 2004), as well as in various articles
(for example, Lubenow 1998, 2000, 2006, 2007).
Lubenow, theologian and anthropologist, had been
studying fossils for many years and his conclusions seemed solid enough;
creationist writers have been quite willing to subscribe to his ideas (for
example, Oard 2009; Parker 2006; Purdom 2007).
But creationists were not totally unanimous in
following the party line on Neanderthals. Maverick Jack Cuozzo, an
orthodontist, had been studying Neanderthal skulls, and had authored some
papers (for example, Cuozzo 1987, 1991, 1994). He then published his scientific
research in a book on Neanderthals, Buried Alive! (Cuozzo 1998a); and
presented a paper on computer projections of human skull changes with age at
the International Conference on Creationism that same year (Cuozzo 1998b).
Cuozzo’s work represented a new research concept with
regard to the scientific methods used in the study of ancient fossils. Whereas
everybody else merely examined the Neanderthal skulls as they were at a point
in time, Cuozzo looked at the skulls (using X-rays) as changing continuously
from the moment of birth right on through to death. He had come to some radical
conclusions: Neanderthals were ancient people who had developed their unique
morphological characteristics (appearance) because they lived to an age of
several hundred years, and, in addition, they had matured to adulthood very
slowly. The significance of Cuozzo’s work did not appear to sink in among
creationists, who have largely ignored his ideas.1 Creationists who have taken heed include
Beasley (1992), Murdock (2004), and Robbins (2009).
Although most creationists currently accept the
Lubenow view of Neanderthals, they admit that there are questions that remain.
Where did the Neanderthals come from and where did they go? Why did they look
as they did? Why did Neanderthals and modern humans appear to live side by side
for long periods (or did they)? Why were Neanderthals buried with modern humans?
Why did the robust Neanderthals disappear so suddenly? Do we carry any of their
DNA or did their line go extinct? Why did young Neanderthals not have
browridges? Where did the Neanderthals fit into biblical history? Were
Neanderthals one of the groups dispersed from Babel? And where did Homo
erectus fit into the picture?
Indeed, accepting H. erectus as human, as the
majority of creationists do now, was a concept that raised its own set of
questions. Where did H. erectus fit into biblical history? Where did H.
erectus come from and where did he go? Do we carry H. erectus genes?
Was there really a wide diversity of human genes immediately post Flood? If so,
how did this diversity happen so soon after the human genetic bottleneck of the
Ark? Should there not have been less diversity immediately after the Flood,
with diversity increasing as time went on? How did H. erectus relate to
the Neanderthals? Why are there no H. erectus burials (Homo erectus
2009b)?
Creationists as a whole did not seem to have answers
for all these questions.
[End of quote]
Pat Franklin, who has enthusiastically accepted the views of Dr.
Cuozzo, has written the following, sometimes quite dramatic, review of Cuozzo’s
controversial book, Buried Alive
Neanderthals
- the amazing truth is in the teeth, reveals American orthodontist. by Pat
Franklin
16/01/2012
American orthodontist Dr Jack Cuozzo has revealed the astonishing
truth about ancient man. Few scientists are ever allowed access to
original skulls, but have to make do with replicas on display in museums.
Dr Cuozzo saw the real thing, x-rayed Neanderthal skulls in Europe, and found
out the truth - and the lies about man's 'evolution'.
His book, 'Buried Alive,' * tells the tale of how he took his
family (wife and five children) to Europe along with special x-ray
equipment. He was allowed access to original fossils and was shocked
to find that Neanderthal fossils had in some cases been altered, bones put
together in the wrong way, and sometimes measured inaccurately to give a false
impression. These findings put Dr Cuozzo and his family in some danger,
and at one time they were fleeing across France and trying to get away from two
cars which began tailing them.
In a motel they had to barricade their doors to stop
intruders. Dr Cuozzo hid the x-rays in a comic book carried by one of his
children, while himself carrying a packet labelled as x-rays, just in case they
were confiscated at the airport. They were all very relieved to get back
on American soil.
That was in 1979, when creationists were just beginning to really
get to grips with evolution versus truth. So what was so important about
x-rays of old bones that sinister men began chasing a dentist and his family
around France?
One of the first skulls x-rayed was a Neanderthal child,
apelike of course. But Dr Cuozzo found that the lower jaw was
out of alignment. As an orthodontist, he could see exactly how the teeth
fit together and how the jaw should be correctly positioned, and when it was,
the skull was not apelike at all!
Another skull was the same - appearing apelike until he put the
jaw into correct alignment, with the wear on the teeth matching perfectly.
He was astonished to see that a fragment of another skull was
being altered, with the chin being removed to make it appear more
apelike. The picture of that is also in the book, along with the original
skull as it looked when it was dug up, chin intact.
Later he looked at another famous skull, this time in Germany – a 'teenage
Neanderthal.' He found once again that the replica skull on display was
made to look apelike, but a color slide purchased at the museum
showed that the lower jaw was dislocated, positioned 30mm out of its
socket! This brought the upper jaw 30mm forward, looking more like a
muzzle, and very apelike.
Other Neanderthal fossils in museums had been scrubbed clean
of red ochre, which was smeared on the skin as a burial custom across Europe
and the Middle East, much as corpses now are made up by morticians to look more
lifelike. As the Neanderthal rotted in the ground, the red ochre would
get on the bones and teeth. This would have been a clear indicator that
Neanderthals were human, with established burial techniques, and that would
have been against evolutionary philosophy. Therefore, the red ochre was
washed off, and not mentioned in scientific journals. But Dr Cuozzo's
equipment examined the inside of the skulls as well as the outside, and there
the red ochre was clearly visible.
On one trip he and his family also found a cave which had been
taken off the official list of ancient sites open to the public in southern
France, where the Neanderthal caves are tourist attractions. He reasoned
that if the cave was off limits, it might contain something which did not fit
in with evolutionist teaching.
They finally found the cave of Bernifal, which was partly blocked
off and had no lights. They had four flashlights with them, and took
flash pictures of all they could before a Frenchman arrived and chased
them out. Their pictures show a cave carving of a dinosaur butting heads
with a mammoth! Dinosaurs are supposed to have died out 65 million years
ago, long before mammoths supposedly 'evolved'. So no wonder the cave was
shut. The picture is in his book.
Dr Cuozzo's conclusions are that Neanderthals, the brutish
'cavemen' depicted in movies and textbooks, were post-Flood (Noah's Flood)
humans. They lived much longer than we do, and matured much more
slowly. They had better teeth and bones and a larger brain. They
were not brutish or arthritic, did not have rickets or
syphilis, and he suspects that their eyes were also superior to ours, possibly
with functions we have lost.
His thoughts about their eyesight are extrapolated from seeing
their caves. The walls in some cases were white crystalline structures
when they were discovered with their cave paintings, but they have become
discolored since artificial lighting was put up for tourists. If they
were in use by Neanderthals, and not smoke damaged then, how could those
ancient people see to paint the cave walls? He wonders if they had eyes
which could see in the dark, a function we may have lost, but will possibly
regain when the Lord restores the world.
'Buried Alive' is a fascinating book, chilling in its revelations
of how dangerous it can be to fall foul of the establishment. There is a
lot of money and power tied up with evolution philosophy, and
academics who control university departments and museums have a lot
to lose if evolution is proved wrong, which I believe it has been, many times
over. But the evolutionists are not going to give up their beliefs just
because they are wrong! And they are certainly not going to drop the
inaccurate and misleading textbooks in schools and colleges!
I believe the Lord Jesus opened the doors for Dr. Cuozzo to do the
original research that no one else had been allowed to do, to see the skulls that
no creationist was allowed to handle. And I believe he and his family
have been protected, first in France and later when their car was shot at in
America. The man who supplied the x-ray equipment was not. His name
and address were plastered on the x-ray crates which Dr Cuozzo took to
France. Later he was found dead in his house in America in
mysterious circumstances, his body covered in hundreds of needle marks.
This too is in the book.
The media, to its shame, has examined none of this. It just
goes along with evolution philosophy. Where are the programs on Dr [Cuozzo's]
book, for example? Who has ever heard of him outside of creationist
circles? Why were his adventures in France not on the news? Why were his
discoveries not the subject of debate in every university? I had never
heard of him until a Christian friend in the USA handed me his book and said,
'You have to read this.' I've now read it, and am passing on the
information via this book review.
[End of quote]
The best that I could make of the enigmatic
Neanderthals prior to reading this new material was that they may have been the
“giants” (Nephilim) of Genesis 6:4: “There
were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that …”.
I conclude with this 2013 article, “Where Does
Neanderthal Fit In The Bible?” http://www.genesisandgenetics.org/2013/11/08/177/
The Bible is
clear: shortly after the creation, man sinned and became extremely wicked, so
wicked that God was sorry He had made man. Then, God caused a great flood,
destroying all mankind with the exception of Noah and his family. We are not
sure how many souls died in this global flood, but suspect that it was many. A
common question is, why is there no fossil evidence of those killed in the
flood? There is fossil evidence of dinosaurs, mammoths, fish, vegetation,
mosquitoes, and even raindrops, so why not evidence of the humans who died in
the flood? The answer to this question is simple and right before us: there is
fossil evidence of humans dying in the flood; these humans are what are
presently referred to as Neanderthal man; Neanderthal man meets the Biblical
criteria for those who died in the flood very nicely.
There is no question that
Neanderthal man lived on earth. Many partial skeletons have been found which
have provided the scientific community with credible DNA sequences. These
sequences reveal a small, but distinct genetic difference between the
Neanderthal and modern man; this difference is approximately 1.3 percent in the
mitochondrial DNA. If we examine the scriptures in Genesis and join them with
the fossil and DNA evidence, we can explain this distinct genetic difference
between Neanderthal and modern man.
Looking at the Biblical
account of the flood, we find that there were sudden major changes to the
environment and ecosystems. The entire earth was flooded which resulted in a
change to the atmosphere which, in turn, resulted in a new ecosystem, no longer
able to support huge dinosaurs with small nostrils and dragonflies with over 2
foot wingspans. Also, concerning humans, we know they lived much shorter lives
after the flood as clearly documented in Genesis chapter 11. And, at the
disembarkation from the Ark, God announced that He would allow the eating of
meat. All of this leads us to realize that these significant changes would
require a genetic reset of DNA. This genetic reset, which was executed by God,
Himself, explains the distinct genetic differences between modern man and those
before the flood, whom we have concluded are Neanderthals. Neanderthal fossils
reveal that Neanderthal had larger brains than modern man, better bone
structure, stronger teeth, better bites (occlusion), fewer genetic mutations
(disease), and longer lifespan. For references and Neanderthal DNA sequences,
see Neanderthal’s Identity.
Accepting Neanderthal man
as those living before the flood solves many mysteries such as the
following:
1. How
did Neanderthal go extinct?
Answer: He
died in the flood.
2. Why
is there no evidence of pre-flood man?
Answer:
There is much evidence of pre-flood man – Neanderthal.
3. Why
is Neanderthal genetically distinct from modern man?
Answer:
Neanderthal had only the first genetic reset, but Modern man had both the first
and second genetic reset. See the technical paper Neanderthal’s Identity for
details.
4. Why
do we have his (Neanderthal’s) genetic mutations, but he doesn’t have ours
(modern man)?
Answer: He
is our ancestor. Our mutations were developed after the flood, so we have both
Neanderthal and modern mutations; he has only the pre-flood mutations.
5. Why
did Neanderthal not interbreed with modern man?
Answer: He
couldn’t; Neanderthal and modern man were separated by the flood.
6. Why
are Neanderthal’s remains found in so many diverse locations?
Answer:
The flood deposited them there.
7. Why
is Neanderthal physiologically and anatomically superior?
Answer:
His DNA was closer to Adam’s.
8. Where
does Neanderthal fit in post-flood Bible genealogy?
Answer: He
doesn’t. We know the DNA from the table of nations people (Genesis Chapter 10)
and subsequent generations; none has the Neanderthal genetic signature.
Part Two:
Cuozzo’s “The Secret
of Bernifal”
“In
this chapter we see evidence that Neanderthal man (a true human) lived
with dinosaurs and carved pictures of them in caves”.
One may read the following exciting
chapter from Jack Cuozzo’s book, Buried
Alive, at: http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/bernifal.html
"The Secret of Bernifal"
"There were four caves on our list that I thought were very
important. They were all in the region of Les Eyzies. Les Eyzies is a village
at the confluence of the Beune and Vezere Valleys. There is a river in the
Vezere Valley and a creek in the Beune Valley, the Petite Beune River. The
larger tortuous and twisted Vezere River eventually empties into the much
larger Dordogne River. As described in chapter 5, Les Eyzies is the capital of
pre-history in France.
In three of these caves we were
escorted by tour guides, but when we entered the fourth we examined it closely without
any authorities present. The first tree: Rouffignac, 14 km from Les Fyzies;
Combarelles, 3 km from Les Byzies; and Font-de-Gaume, 2 km from Les Byzies, all
had fees for entrance and tours of the long, selected routes in each cave.
There were many public passageways in these first three caves and many that
were blocked off to the public.
The standard evolutionary cave
propaganda was preached by each of the tour guides in French, whether it was a
walking tour or a miniature train tour. If you were a creationist, you needed a
very thick skin and a lot of anti-acid medicine for your stomach when you
visited these eaves. It also probably would help if you didn’t understand
French. Unfortunately, I understood a little, but enough to be uncomfortable on
the tours.
The fourth cave or
"Grotte," as the French call it, was the very dark and extraordinary
Bernifal. Bernifal is 5 km from Les Eyzies and required some real searching to
discover its whereabouts. There were no signs in Les Eyzies or outside of town
indicating where it was located. The people we asked merely shrugged their
shoulders. Some also puffed air out of their mouths, which seems to be almost a
French custom when encountering a problem. Finally, we found a couple of
friendly souls that were neither shruggers nor puffers and they gave us some
rough directions which lead to the general vicinity.
I had previously purchased a
small booklet at the Museum of Saint Germainen-Laye which described this cave
along with many others. It was a guide book which described the decorated caves
"ouvertes au public" (open to the public).(1) It provided some
directions which my small hand of "middle and high school French
scholars" poured over. The kids provided me with three different
interpretations. I concurred with a little of each. There were some
similarities, so we built on those and made our way down route D 47.
In another book that I had taken
with us, Ann Sieveking describes the important caves of the valley of the
Petite Beune River. She says, "Eleven decorated shelters have been found
in the valley of the Petite Beune, distributed on either side of the river over
a distance of about seven kilometers. Only one of these, Bemifal, is a cave of
major importance and it is a deep cave while the majority of the lessor sites
are daylit shelters. The shelters will here be described as they occur going
upstream from the direction of Les Fyzies. Bemifal is, in fact, the third cave,
but its importance allows it to be described first."(2) The guide book
mentioned above described the cave as being approximately 5 km from Les Eyzies
in the community of Meyrals very near route D 47.
Another problem arose when we
looked for this very important cave in the recent Michelin map of the
Perigord.(3) We had just purchased it in 1982, but it did not reveal the
location of Bernifal, even though it did display all popular grottes (caves)
and shelters. The little guide book from the museum was published in 1976 and
Sieveking’s book in 1979. Both had spoken about it in detail. It was strange
that the Michelin map had completely left it out when it was of major
importance. The guidebook advised bringing one’s own light to see Bemifal.
While it was open to the public, no light was provided for you to see the
walls. I had never heard of a public cave with no lighting. It also said that
the floor of the cave was very slippery and you just might fall without a
"appui de la main" or cane. That, in itself, is enough to make one suspicious.
Open but slippery and dark didn’t sound too inviting to the average tourist.
Apparently these words and
omissions fell on deaf ears and some people still came to Bernifal. By the time
we arrived in the summer of 1982 a decision was made to close Bemifal to the
public. It didn’t make too much sense since the caves are large tourist
attractions and therefore sources of revenue. Bemifal was open at least from
1976 to 1979. So, with Bernifal not on the Michelin map, it became almost
invisible. All we could conclude was that something was wrong with Bemifal and
that tourists were not to be allowed inside anymore. After weighing all the
previous knowledge, we became more determined to find it.
Apparently someone else thought
that closing the cave was a bad idea, too. Whoever this was unofficially opened
it to the public once again. This time the cave was not opened by a
bureaucratic government agency, but by someone using a much more rapid method
called “the axe or sledge hammer” technique, to bash in the front door. That’s
how we found it when we finally located the entrance. However, locating it
wasn’t so simple. After driving around a while, we finally spotted the
supposedly prominent landmark near the cave described in the guidebook. It was
the chateau de Viell-Mouly. At first, we had been baffled in our quest for this
landmark. The chateau (castle) was supposed to be on the left side of the road.
We went up and down the road several times before deciding that a stone-stucco
house on the left side with a small tower-like structure attached to it could
actually be called a castle or chateau. Of course we really had to stretch the
definition of a castle to match what was really there. It certainly didn’t
match any of the other castles we had seen. However, there was a large farm
field across the street from the chateau and we noticed a farm house adjacent
to the field. This part fit the description. I parked the van on D47 at the end
of the field far away from the farm house. A stream wound its way along the
edge of the field flowing next to the road. It would be necessary to cross this
stream in order to get to the field. Our guidebook said that one should walk
across a "valley" after crossing the stream. Looking into the
distance we could see the face of a small cliff on the other side of the field.
We deducted that the field must be the "valley" and the Remifal cave
must be somewhere in the cliff on the other side. Our directions said it should
be a ten-minute walk from the road to the cave. We also noticed that there was
a large camper van also parked on the same side of the road but closer to the
farm house. There were only two parked vehicles on that street.
We proceeded towards the farm
house after we noticed that the only bridge across this stream was directly in
front of the house. It was a small bridge which had a chain extending from one
side of it to the other and a sign hanging from the middle of the chain. It
read, "Passage interdite," meaning crossing was forbiden. We didn’t
have to get out our pocket French-English dictionary to translate that. Most of
us knew what it meant, so we couldn’t plead ignorance. The fact that crossing
the bridge was forbidden was clearly meant to keep tourists off the property
that belonged to the inhabitants of this farm house. No problem, we thought...
we'll just go ask the farmer for permission to cross over the bridge. We were
pretty bold, or naive, once again. There on a sunny day in southern France, a
daddy, a mommy, and their five children knocked on the door of a farm house for
permission to cross over private property when there was a sign saying that you
couldn’t cross over.
We knocked, and knocked and
knocked but there was no farmer or no Mrs. farmer either. What to do? No one
was home. Well, knowing us, by this time you should have guessed that we jumped
over the chain and crossed the forbidden bridge. We then were on another
adventure.
Across the Battlefield
We crossed the valley like a
platoon of soldiers crossing a battlefield. Our eyes were constantly looking in
every direction hunting for the dreaded farmer or some farm hand. We tried to
stay low but we stood out like tall corn stalks above the vegtables and grass.
There was a clear path that we followed through the vegetation that led to the
base of the cliff. I didn’t know how we were going to climb this cliff As we
pondered that question, someone saw another path looked like it went up a large
hill that might take us around the other side of cliff. We started up the new
path, and as we climbed higher and higher we came upon a plateau which was
heavily wooded. By this time we were out of the sight of the farmhouse and,
hopefully, safe. We moved along the path behind the cliff until eventually we
found the entrance to a cave. It was nestled among a dense grove of trees, and
approachable only by a deep gouge cut into the earth of the hillside. This
dug-out lane was 4-6 feet high on either side and not very long. It led right
up to the front door.
An amazing fact was the condition
of the front door to the cave, as we found it on August 4, 1982. This large,
wooden door to the primary entrance was split in half. I solemnly promise all
my readers, and the French authorities, that we had no part in the splitting of
this door. We entered into the pitch blackness of Bernifal with great caution
at 10:30 a.m. It was no shock to find that the floor was very muddy. Walking
had to be done with care. We only had four flashlights, and all tried to stay
close together It was a very frightening but exciting adventure for all of us.
We set up the two oldest boys as a guard at the door to rotate every ten
minutes, just so nobody could surprise us.
The temperature outside was about
80 degrees F. but inside the cave it was around 50 degrees F. In our bones, it
felt more like 40 degrees F. The cave was over 200 feet deep according to our
reports and we found the floor covered with one to two inches of mud (see
figure 22). Water dripped down from many places in the ceiling and stalactites
from the roof were forming everywhere. There were also many stalagmites rising
up from the floor like spikes in various places. These could really put your
knee out of joint in a hurry. Sliding in the mud and falling on one of these
pointed things could ruin your whole day. I asked the kids if this could be the
reason Neanderthals became extinct? How could I find time humor in this
situation? Well, with five children, almost anything can be funny.
We were all standing in the first
chamber and had just seen a red outline of a mammoth on the left wall when the
silence of the darkness was suddenly shattered by voices coming from the depths
of the cave. We knew we couldn’t run because we’d all be flat on our face in
the mud or impaled on a stalagmite. There was nothing to do but wait and see
who it was. Our door guards returned when they heard the noise. We waited in
stunned silence.
We all relaxed when we heard the
very pleasant sound of a little dog barking along with the voices.
As they approached, I recognized
that they were speaking Italian. This was my grandmother and grandfather’s
native language. As the voices and the woofing drew nearer we saw a single
small light coming at us. They greeted us in Italian. There were three people,
two men and a woman. I spoke a little Italian and they spoke a little English.
They were from a university in Italy, Turin, I believe. We confirmed the fact
that this truly was Bernifal. They had some handwritten notes written in
Italian that described the cave in detail. Someone at their university had been
in this cave at an earlier date. We exchanged some information, and after this
short conversation they said goodbye and exited from the broken front door of
the cave. I wondered if they had permission or had done the same thing that we
did. They couldn’t have been the ones that split the door because there was no
sign of an axe or sledge anywhere around the entrance, and they weren’t
carrying one. The big problem was that they were the ones that owned the camper
we saw parked near the farmhouse. This was bad news for us.
As they left, they must have
encountered the farmer and informed him about our presence in the cave to
divert attention away from themselves. He immedi-ately headed for the cave,
intending not to go through the front door but to climb down through a secret
opening in the ceiling. As the farmer headed towards the cave, armed with a
thick walking stick, we went deeper into its bowels. We had no idea that any of
this was going on. With some confidence, I relieved the two boys, John, age 16,
and Frank, age 13, of their door guard duties so they could accompany us deeper
into the cave.
We all held hands as we left
chamber one and entered chamber two. It was a downhill slide at this point.
Light flashed in all directions. Margie saw a red hand imprint on a wall —
obviously red ochre (mixed with animal fat, it became wall paint). She held her
hand next to it as I shot a picture
(see figure 23 in color insert
section).
A huge claw-like structure
appeared suddenly on our right and everyone gasped. It was only a stone
formation, but very terrifying. The boys then saw a ladder going up to another
level. Daniel and Frank climbed up and said it led to a ledge above one of the
walls. They wanted to go further up but I said we should stick together. I had
no idea what would await them at the next level up. I kept shooting Hash
pictures at anything and everything I thought was important. There had to be
something in here, I thought, that was not supposed to be seen. Where was it?
We investigated deeper and deeper, seeing less and less as we went and getting
the feeling that impending doom was coming upon us. I was starting to get
nervous about getting lost in this place and also a vague feeling of danger
crept into my being. I thought that we had better turn around and get ready to
leave. We had been in there at least 30 to 40 minutes and the damp coldness was
beginning to penetrate our bones. I thought if Neanderthalers had lived in
this, it’s no wonder that they had arthritis.
As we walked and slid back into
room one, I took flash pictures of a carved mammoth head and a very
demonic-looking face while shooting the entire wall for completeness
(see figure 25 in color insert
section).
Only small spots were illuminated
on the walls with the flashlights, so entire wall patterns were difficult to
see. In was just on the knife-edge of time that we exited through the broken
door, because within about a minute right behind us appeared the farmer with
his thick stick coming out of the same door. He yelled at us in French, saying
the cave was closed (ferme), passage was interdite and we shouldn’t have
crossed his bridge. He caught up to us quickly while brandishing the large
staff. He seemed anxious to know what we saw in the cave. He also asked if we
were picking champignons (mushrooms). I said no, we weren’t picking champignons
but we were in the cave. I showed him my guidebook which stated that this cave
was open (ouvert) to the public. He kept insisting it wasn’t open and he was
getting angry. I gave a quick motion signal to my team and we all started a
very fast walk down the path knowing that he probably couldn’t keep up with us.
We kept going faster and faster until finally we were running as he followed
closely behind. We sprinted across the field and splashed through the stream
heading directly towards the van. We jumped in the van, slammed the doors, and
sped away while it appeared as if he was writing down our license plate. We
headed back to Brive at a normal speed so as not to call any attention to
ourselves, while all the time praying that we wouldn’t be reported to the
police. We got back to the hotel unharmed, and miraculously, unreported.
Dinosaurs
One of the last things an
evolutionist will ever admit or believe is that Paleolithic man or woman saw a
live dinosaur. This simply will not do. According to their theories, the age of
man did not begin until some 2.5-3 million year ago with his predecessors in
Africa, and certainly, they believe the men who decorated this cave existed
within the last 200,000 years, most likely within the last 30,000 years.
Dinosaurs, on the other hand died out at least 65 million year ago. This, to
them, is fact.
Every cave that we visited and
every decorated cave that the public is allowed to tour will "mammal"
you to death. I mean all they will show you are mammals. This doesn’t mean that
down some other passageway reptiles can’t be found. Where they take you there
are no drawings or carvings of reptiles. It’s as reptiles never existed. We
know that this is not true because we still have reptiles today. Snakes,
lizards, turtles, alligators, and tuataras are all part of our modern fauna,
but conspicuously absent from cave drawings. The cave painters and engravers
surely had reptiles in their age. Where were they? More specifically, we must
make direct inquiry about cave evidence concerning the existence of those
"terrible lizards" or dinosaurs. Are there dinosaurs depicted on cave
walls?
Serpent Biting a heel
Reptiles are not absent in the
Paleolithic study of "portable art." Portable art means just that.
These are artworks constructed by human hands that can be car-ried around from
place to place as opposed to "fixed" mural art on cave walls. The
term "portable art" in the prehistoric era usually refers to artwork
carved on the surface of bones or pieces of stone.
Alexander Marshak of Harvard
University is a specialist in this subject with many years of first-hand study
of original objects. In his book entitled The Roots of Civilization, he shows a
detailed bone carving found in La Madeleine, France (Dordogne region), that
displays a clear representation of a serpent.(4) It is this site, La Madeleine,
that gave its name to the Magdalenian period of human existence in France.(5)
During this period Neanderthals were no longer supposed to be alive and more
modern-looking, or Cro-Magnon peoples, populated South-ern France.(6)
The serpent artifact found in La
Madeleine was mysterious according to Marshak. The etchings were made on a long
round bone with precision-type in-struments.(7) This bony scene is presented by
the author in its unrolled form, as if it were on a scroll. The drawing shows a
man-like figure caffying a stick with twigs or leaves on it and two horse heads
facing in the opposite direction. To us, the interesting part concerns the
figure of an upside-down legless serpent or snake that appears poised to take a
bite out of the lower-half of the man’s right leg. Its mouth is not open but it
is only inches away from the flesh. Of course, Marshak did not recognize in
print its resemblance to the prophecy from Genesis, "He will crush your
head and you will strike His heel" (Gen. 3:15).(8)
Microscopic Carvings
Much of Marshak’s studies had to
be conducted under the microscope to properly visualize the inscriptions and
drawings. Did these early people carve these engravings with a magnifying glass
or microscope? I’m sure that they did not. There is one big question that now
arises: How could the ancient artists see with their eyes what we cannot see
today without magnification?
I had spoken at ATT Bell Labs in
1995 and just touched on this subject briefly. After my talk someone asked me
if I knew about the ancient use of "cow lenses." I said that I had
never heard of this subject. He told me that on a tour of a cave in Europe a
tour guide had said that early peoples had actually torn out the lens from a
cow’s eye and stuck it on their own eye so they could magnify ob-jects. There
are no limits to the stories tour guides can dream up in their heads for the
sake of an evolutionary explanation. I told him that I didn’t think it would
work. I think that if you stick a cow lens over your eye that you had better
have good vision in the other eye, because that’s the only one that you will be
seeing out of. Besides that, all the possible allergic reactions make the
experiment seem doomed to failure.
The CONFRONTATION
One of the amazing things that
happened inside the Bemifal Cave was that in the process of shooting pictures
in all directions, I took a picture of an actual dinosaur carving. This could
be the very reason why Bemifal was suddenly closed to the public when the
creation movement of the seventies and eighties started to gain public
acceptance. No dinosaurs ever existed with man, they said; therefore, no
paintings and no carvings. The other caves must be neatly cordoned off so that
no unjaundiced eye ever sees a reptile figure on a wall. We were never supposed
to see this. It was mainly carved into the rock with only a little dab of paint
on it, therefore not easy to see, especially with flashlights.
My photograph entitled "The
Confrontation" in figure 24 actually shows a dinosaur-like creature in
head-to-head combat with a mammoth. This, I believe, is the first time that
this carving has ever been revealed to the public. These images were carved
into the walls using some of the natural configurations of the limestone as
part of the anatomy. What type of dinosaur is this? The diagram of this
confrontation is seen in figure 24a.
First of all it had small front
limbs. It had a vertical eye slot, meaning the eye was longer in its vertical
dimension than it was in its horizontal dimension. The snout in front of the
eye looks to be somewhat hollowed out as if the bone in that place was concave.
No large teeth protruded from either jaw but what looks like small teeth were
in either the upper or lower jaw. It had a large upper jaw and a smaller lower
jaw. There is a nostril opening at the front of the snout. Under the eye, the
mouth line extends parallel to the top of the snout and becomes a line of
muscle in the neck when it reaches a point beyond the eye, making an
approximately 120-degree angle turn and travels down the short neck to the
intersection between the right limb and the neck. The claws have been broken
off on this right limb. Both elbows are visible. The left limb is held in the
same position with a rounded paw area.
What Kind is it?
There are two great orders of
dinosaurs: the Saurischia (lizard-hipped) and the Ornithischia (bird-hipped).
This division is based on the structure of the pelvis (hip). We can’t see the
pelvic (hip) structure in this sculpture so we have to classify it by some
other means.
In the Saurischian dinosaurs the
teeth of the jaws are set into the margins or only in the front. In this
specimen, there are what appear to be teeth along the one side towards the
front part of the snout, but not much is seen in the front of the snout.
Ornithischia tended to be herbivorous while the Saurischians were car-nivorous.
This dinosaur is in a combative stance. Carnivores tend to be combat-ive, but
some herbivores are also combative. However, only Saurischians had a hollowed
area in front of the eye. We may also infer from the short upper limbs that
this was a bipedal dinosaur (walked on two hind legs).
From these features it seems
possible to tentatively classify this dinosaur sculpture into the suborder
Theropoda. These Saurischian creatures were almost exclusively carnivorous,
bipedal, with strong hind legs and small forelimbs. They supposedly flourished
during the entire Mesozoic era (230 to 62 million years ago). To go any further
would be pure guesswork. To say it was a Teratosauris, Allosauris.
Acrocanthosauris, or such would not be possible, given the limited data.
However, to be very forthright, it must be stated that this is a dinosaur,
period. How did this happen to get on the Bernifal wall?
Before we compose any theories on
the dinosaur appearance, let’s take a look at the mammoth. Mammoths or Elaphas
primigenius remains have been found in the excavations in France at
Cro-Magnon, La Quina, and La Roches .(9) Drawings and engravings of them have
been found in numerous caves such as Rouffignae, La Baume Latrone,(10)
Pech-Merle, Pair-non-Pair, Bernifal, Font-de-Gaume, and Combarelles." The
red outline of the mammoth or Elaphas primigenius seen in figure 25 (color
insert section) is on the wall in the Bernifal cave below the
"Confrontation:" This red mammoth was noted by Ann Sieveking.’(2) It
corresponds well with the one carved in the "Confrontation." These
mammoths had small ears in contrast to the African elephant of recent times and
had a lump of fat on the top of its head, which gave it the characteristic
bump-on-the-head look.
Regardless of whether this
sculpture was done in the Upper or Middle Paleolithic, by either Neanderthal,
Cro-Magnon, Magdelaine, or Gravettian people, it was still accomplished by a
human. This human either saw a dinosaur and mammoth in battle or had a portable
piece of artwork that contained this piece of information and had been handed
down for several generations. Because I believe that we have rather good
evidence for these caves being post-flood caves and for post-flood burials in
other caves, I believe that the latter is true. It was accomplished by a person
who had a piece of portable art, but a human saw it happen.
One other possibility exists and
that is the post-Hood existence of both dinosaurs and mammoths originating from
the ark. They both could have come off together, but because of unsuitable
environmental conditions the dinosaurs became extinct while the mammoth and
other mammals adapted to the harsher atmospheric and terrestrial surroundings.
The post-flood conditions would not favor the preservation of dinosaur
skeletons or any skeletons, for that matter. Deep, rapid burial and compaction
of mud flows following the flood are ideal circumstances for the making and
preserving of animal bones. Consequently, we would expect that there would be
very few post-flood dinosaur fossils compared to pre-flood dinosaur fossils.
Red Ochre Again
In figure 25 in the color insert
section there is the red mammoth and there is also the red hand print on
another wall (figure 23 in the color insert section). These undoubtedly are red
ochre. Supposedly. all the cave paintings in the Upper Paleolithic made use of this
material.(3) What is important is that here is this red substance again. The
same kind of material used on La Ferrassie I and Pech del’ Aze in their burial
custom. This wall paint was probably red ochre mixed with animal fat. It seems
to allow the time frame of this cave to be in a Neanderthal period.
Keeping the red ochre and the
dinosaur carving in mind, we must ask how does this fit in the modern
scientific view of history? It really doesn’t fit at all because the dinosaur
eliminates approximately 62-65 million years and makes man, dinosaur, and
mammoth (a mammal) contemporaries.’(4) The red ochre on the same cave walls as
a dinosaur throws all the timetables off. No wonder the cave was closed.
Also, one very important question
should be raised regarding the information of Bernifal artwork. If these
fossils are truly found in different layers of sedimentation, do the layers
represent time or geographic separation. I believe the artist of Bernifal was
trying to demonstrate that these animals were mortal enemies, that they fought,
and because of this they lived in distant ecological niches.(15) Therefore, the
layers could merely represent isolated burial sites due to the independent
pre-flood habitats of these creatures, and have nothing to do with gaps in
time.
Today Modern scientists refer to
some of these habitats as eras or periods. The Mesozoic Era is suppposedly the
age of reptiles which lasted approximately 120 to 165 million years with its
Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods.(16) The Early epochs of the
Cenozoic Era, the age of mammals, are the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene,
Miocene, and Pliocene, and so on. These separate layers could very well be only
widely dispersed ecological habitats. We are now, supposedly, in the later
stages of the Cenozoic Era. There is no question that some layering of sediment
takes place over time - just dig down in any historical site. However, it is
quite different to say that time is the only factor represented by
sedimentation.
A few years ago in our yard at
home we dug down around three feet in our garden on the south side of the house
and unearthed an early - 1800 garbage pit. There were all sorts of broken
pieces of china and strange-shaped bottles, high top leather boots, an old
cabinet lock which was part gold, molten glass that had hardened on pieces of
coal, plus many other broken artifacts of the 1800s. There were dates on the
bottles. Obviously, this was a pit to discard unwanted items. Garbage pits like
this are also found in restored Colonial villages like Williamsburg, Virginia.
A question that can be posed
regarding this type of discovery is this: How does one know when digging down
into so-called occupational levels of prehistoric caves he is not just
excavating a garbage pit?
A Very Natural Selection
At the risk of redundancy I would
like to emphasize the process of "natural selection" when
evolutionists come upon evidence such as the "Confrontation;" They
naturally select only the evidence they want you to see. I offer the following
letter as evidence. It was received by me in October of 1982 after I submitted
the "Confrontation" photo to Science News. I was hoping for a
scientific breakthrough, but all [I] received was this:
SCIENCE NEWS
I. Street NW, Washington DC 20036 (202) 785-2255
Oct. 6, 1982
Dear Dr. Cuozzo: As I told you on the phone the other day, we appreciated the opportunity to look at your photo. Unfortunately, it’s not something we can use in the magazine - while I have no doubt that the images are there, both the editor and I don’t think it would be clear when reproduced in the magazine. In addition, we need comments from an expert or two in the field who had seen it, which doesn’t seem possible in this case.
I wish you the best of luck with
your picture, and once again thank you for giving us the opportunity to look at
it.
Sincerely,
Assistant to the Editor
Assistant to the Editor
If you will note carefully, the
letter said that they would need comments from an expert or two in the field
who has seen it. However, that was impossible. Why? First of all, the cave had
probably been sealed up like a can of Campbell’s soup. Secondly, without a will
there is no way.
Is it because no one has seen it,
no one will admit to seeing it, or no one will dare go to see it? I think the
latter two reasons are the most plausible. What we are dealing with is a
monolithic structure in modern science where there is absolutely no evidence
which could possibly shed some doubt on the evolutionary interpretation of
life. According to them, it just doesn’t exist. And if it did exist, it
wouldn’t be scientific. Therefore, why go see it? But she did say she had no
doubt that the images were there. As I write this a number of years later, I
can almost guarantee that those images don’t exist anymore, or at least a
padlocked steel door has replaced the broken wooden one.
Font-De-Gaume, Clean Caves and Time
It seems that ever since modem
men first discovered the painted caves that they have been deteriorating. Caves
like Font-de-Gaume, Combarelles, and Lascaux had white walls(7) before the
tourists came. These caves are not small.
We visited Font-de-Gaume
officially. We stood in a long line, paid our fees, and had a guided tour.
Font-de-Gaume is over 123 meters deep, with smaller sections 15, 21, and 48
meters. Most of the artwork in this cave starts at about 60 meters from the
entrance. There are about 200 animals separated into about 25 tourist stops
along the route through the cave. If we are to be perceptive, “wise as
serpents” (Matt. 10:16), we must be careful to observe everything when going
through this cave and notice the darkened walls from about just 50 years of
being open to the public. They were really dark gray and made the atmosphere
rather dismal.
But this fact leads to a mystery.
Ann Sieveking states, "In less than half a century of public visiting the
walls of Font-de-Gaume have been changed from white to deep gray by the smoke
of carbide lamps but although we think its pe-riod of use in the Paleolithic
covered many thousands of years it was not dirty when first rediscovered in the
twentieth century; nor was Lascaux, nor Ekain in the Basque province of
Guipuzcoa, both of which are caves that still have a beau-tiful white
crystalline surface:"(8) These caves, when first discovered, had white
crystalline walls. Thousands of years of use and white crystalline walls, is
that a contradiction or not? Please note this fact well. It really disputes
thousands of years of cave use by prehistoric peoples.
Gowleti states, "Lamps were
indispensable for working in dark caves, and these have been found at Lascaux
and elsewhere. They were simple carved stone bowls, in which animal fats would
have been burnt with a wick."(9) He forgot to add that it was probably
"smokeless fat" that they were using. Notice here the beginning of a
real made-up story to cover up a mystery. If this were true, we could all get
rid of our exhaust fans over our stoves. I would imagine that the evolutionist
would define smokeless fat as sort of like decaffeinated coffee.
Ann Sieveking admits the use of
stone lamps at Lascaux but contradicts Gowlett when she states, "We know
virtually nothing about the use of the deep caves, except that use hardly
appears to have been made of them at all. There are no traces of big fires to
light the galleries by, no blackening smoke or soot stains on the roof and
almost no possessions left lying about."(21) How many times did the
inhabitants or artists of these caves go in and out with their smoking torches
or lamps that left no smoke marks on the walls or ceilings? How could drawings,
carvings, and so forth, deep in dark, cold (50 degrees F) tunnels under the
ground be accomplished without much light?
Could they have used giant
fireflies? The facts don’t add up. Light for these people meant fire. This was
post-flood Europe. Fire means smoke. Could these cave artworks have been
accomplished without modern type light? How? Surely there were not 50 to 80 thousands
of years of use of these caves. Could the artists in these caves possibly have
had better eyesight than modern man? Perhaps with some an infrared type of
capability?
The Rouffignac Refrigerator
Rouffignac Cave is called the
cave of 100 mammoths. It is about 7 km north of Les Ezies and, according to the
official guidebook, it "runs back for seven miles."(21) Engravings
and drawings are found all over the cave. I wonder how dark it was at seven miles
down when the artists went in many years ago. We went through this cave on a
little open tourist train. It was like a kiddy ride at the amusement park. The
Rouffignac train ride went along a few miles of well-lit track and was really a
cold ride. It was so cold at its depths that I saw some real ice sitting on a
ledge over numerous mammoth drawings. When I saw the mam-moth drawings and the
ice together, my first thought was that we were in an enormous "ancient
meatlocker" I think mammoth meat would have stored pretty well, if not
frozen in some locations in the "meatlocker." It could also have
served as a refrigerator for our ancient relatives.
Dancing in the Dark
Recent explorations have been
conducted in a cave in Bruniquel, Southern France. We didn’t see this cave
firsthand, but over the past six years the depths of the cave have been
investigated by archaeological teams led by a number of French archeologists.
They said the occupation levels of this deep cave could be 47,600 years old or
much older. This is their way of saying it wasn’t recent. One of the
archaeologists, a Francois Rouzaud, said that Bruniquel cave, "shows that
pre-historic men frequented the deep underground world, in total darkness, long
before they began to paint on cave walls."(22) Men and women walked around
in total darkness. Can you picture that? With all the stalactites hanging from
the ceilings and stalagmites protruding from the floor, I can say that this is
absolutely impossible without light or sonar. I know we are not related to
dolphins, so there are only two choices left. Better vision in the dark or
lights. That’s it. The Bernifal cave would have hospitalized us all without
light. I don’t know which would have been worse, a stalactite in the head or a
stalagmite in the knee.
Burnt bones were also found in
the depths of Bruniquel, which meant whoever was in there cooked their food.
However, burning fires in a cave over 300 meters from the surface would fill
the cave with smoke and deplete all the avail-able oxygen, unless it were
vented. The archaeologists did not provide any evi-dence to prove that the cave
had a source of air at these great depths. Cooked mammoth steaks, therefore,
could have been brought into the dark depths of the cave for non-candlelight
romantic dinners for two.
Picture this scene: Two sets of
infrared human eyes stare at each other in total darkness in the depths of the
Bruniquel Neanderthal Cafe. They suddenly realize that in the future, as their
genes go silent, candlelight might have to be used to spoil the cozy atmosphere
and eat up the limited oxygen in the cafe. A small stalactite quartet starts
playing guess what? You’re right, the strains of "Dancing in the
Dark" come wafting out of the opening in the ground as the mammoths gather
around the cave entrance swinging to the music from below, although they’re not
too happy about the aroma of their "charcoal-broiled" Uncle Mammu, no
relation to Shamu. it was the middle stone age but no one had ever heard of
"rock music." That was to come with more genetic breakdown in the
so-called advanced society of the future. Now, back to reality.
Many consider these art works to
have a religious significance, and if so, they have to be able to account for
the coming and going of Paleolithic peoples for over thousands of years and no
apparent damage to the walls except for some graffiti. There is one theory that
none of the evolutionist authors will touch and that is that these cave
paintings may show and tell some stories that the evolutionists are unwilling to
see or listen to. Jesus asked, "Having eyes, do you not see? And having
ears, do you not hear?" (Mark 8:18).
….
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