Discovery of Ancient Tools: Estimated to be 40 Million Years Old, Unearthed in California Gold Mine.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, miners made a fascinating discovery in the gold mining area of Table Mountain and other regions. They stumbled upon hundreds of artifacts crafted from stone, as well as human remains, within their tunnels.

Experts studying these findings determined that the bones and artifacts were located within Eocene-era strata, which corresponds to a time frame of approximately 38 to 55 million years ago. Dr. J.D. Whitney, a renowned government geologist from California, shared this valuable information. His research was published in the book titled “The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California,” which was released by Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1880. However, this significant contribution to scientific knowledge was largely disregarded because it challenged the prevailing Darwinist views on human origins.

The discovery of gold in the riverbeds of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1849 attracted numerous adventurous individuals to towns such as Brandy City, Last Chance, and Lost Camp. Initially, miners used pans to sift through the gravels that had accumulated in the streambeds, hoping to find nuggets and flakes of gold. As the gold rush gained momentum, mining corporations invested more resources into the extraction process. They began drilling shafts into the mountainsides, following the deposits of gravel wherever they led. Additionally, high-pressure water jets were employed to wash away the auriferous gravels from slopes.

As miners delved deeper into the earth, they unearthed not only valuable stones but also human fossils. Dr. J.D. Whitney selected the most significant artifacts and presented them to scientists for further examination. While the age of surface deposits and hydraulic mining artifacts was subject to uncertainty, objects found in deep mine shafts or tunnels could be dated with more accuracy. Dr. Whitney concluded that the geological data suggested that the auriferous rocks were, at most, of Pliocene age. However, contemporary geologists now believe that some gravel deposits actually date back to the Eocene period.

In Tuolumne County, numerous shafts were driven through the deep strata of Table Mountain, ultimately reaching the gold-bearing rocks. Some of these shafts extended horizontally for hundreds of yards beneath the latite layer. The age of the gravels situated directly above the bedrock can range from 33.2 to 56 million years, while other gravels may span a time frame of 9 to 55 million years.

William B. Holmes, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, remarked, “If Professor Whitney had fully appreciated the story of human evolution as it is understood today, he would have hesitated to announce the conclusions formulated, notwithstanding the imposing array of testimony with which he was confronted.” Holmes emphasized the importance of rejecting conclusions that contradict established facts. Nevertheless, some of the objects discovered by Whitney are still on display at the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Similar challenges relating to the treatment of archaeological evidence arose in the case of Huyatlaco in Mexico, influenced by Darwinism and other ideologies. Cynthia Irwin Williams led a team of archaeologists who uncovered stone tools alongside butchered animal bones during excavations at Huyatlaco in the 1970s. The site was dated by a group of geologists, including Virginia Steen McIntyre, who employed four different dating methods: zircon fission tracks dating on volcanic layers above artifact layers, uranium series dates on butchered bones, zircon track dating on volcanic layers above artifact layers, and tephra-hydration dating of volcanic crystals in layers above the artifacts.

The archaeologists faced resistance in accepting the site’s ages because they believed two fundamental assertions: (1) No human beings were capable of producing such artifacts anywhere on the

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