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Summary: Silly and foolish nonsensical speculation
Review: Forbidden Archaeology is a perfect example of fantastic archaeology. It is so fantastic and forbidden because it is largely a comic book fantasy of the authors imaginations, a work of science fiction that no legitimate archaeologist would ever take seriously. Since neither author have credentials in archaeology, one has to wonder how they have been able to uncover this so called Hidden History, while all professional archaeologists are so deluded. Forbidden Archaeology falls under mythology, science fiction, or new age mysticism, but definitely NOT serious archaeology.
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Summary: A brilliant record of the history of man.
Review: This is a meticulous and patient presentation of the evidence that "modern" man has been around for a much longer length of time than the evolutionists will acknowledge. Current science holds that modern man is 200,000 years old or less. Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson take that notion to task in a painstaking review of the record by going back to the original sources of antiquated archeological finds and reevaluating them in an unbiased fashion. They manage to push man's origins back to at least one million years with no trouble at all. Their case-by-case review of published literature dating from the mid-nineteenth century until the present is fascinating. This is not a casual read for a weekend. It is a tough, scholarly work that makes you think about the "science" in the established scientific community.
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Summary: Very interesting work
Review: This is an thoroughly researched and tightly reasoned book challenging prevailing beliefs about human evolution. This is not a creationist text but a very honest look at the data supporting the presently conceived view of human evolution. Even if you don't agree with the author's premises the book offers a great and detailed look at the scientific evidence underlying the theories of human evolution. It also sheds a great deal of light on the subjective factors that go into determining what is offered to the public as "scientific truth." Definitely worth a read.
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Summary: Brave and meticulously researched!
Review: No other book has provoked so much debate on the archaeology and anthropology DGs. It is not always an easy read - the wealth of evidence presented over the 900 or so pages is enormous and is often recorded in painstaking detail. Stick with it however and the reader will become convinced that the conventional view of humankind's origins is totally and utterly incorrect. There is plenty of fascinating material about the cheating, misrepresentation, back-stabbing and conspiracies that have plagued archaeological science ever since Darwin stirred up the hornets' nest of evolution. The sections on human fossils in the UK and the reexamination of the infamous Piltdown case, I found particularly interesting.
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Summary: Prompted me to reassess my archaeological education.
Review: Years after drifting away from my background in archaeology, I started playing catch-up with some current works. This book made me take a hard look at what I was taught in college. In retrospect I see how archaeology can be highly unscientific. For example, I was told in one lecture that a certain site in Wisconsin (Aztalan State Park) used to be a great site, but it had been paved over years before. Well, I've been to Aztalan three times with friends, and it's an honest-to-goodnes ancient city with earth pyramids. Did that professor purposely lie to the class? Did he think no one would ever actually visit the place? What other complete fabrications have I been taught? Cremo and Thompson are very brave for taking on the establishment, but they have a lot of allies like me out here. Let's bring on SCIENCE and some TRUTH to our origins.
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Summary: Fascinating Book by Cremo, Dull Reading by Laura Lee
Review: Laura Lee is terribly miscast as narrator of this otherwise fascinating book-on-tape. While Ms. Lee is excellent at pronouncing French and Italian names, her weak, breathy and affected voice is just too small-in-reach to successfully tackle a job as a professional narrator--a prime reason why I find it difficult to listen to her on the radio; one also questions how her voice is acceptable to a national radio audience. (But I don't wish to be harsh on Ms. Lee who is obviously determined, bright, beautiful and successsful at what she does though often grossly misinformed about scientific fact. She's an entertainer, nothing more.) Now about the book itself--it's a very fascinating book which will make you think about the real age of humanity. Although a nagging question I would ask the author is why are so many of the really intriguing, challenging "finds" from the 19th century and NONE (at least so it appears)of these bizzare finds can be gotten today for further study by modern experts--regardless of their evolutionary paradigm? That's probably the biggest stumbling block to the academic community when considering Cremo's thesis--if they even consider it. To paraphrase a fossil in her own right, Wendy's T.V. Hamburger Queen the late Clara Peller, "Where's the (lithified) beef?!" No matter, the book should be read by anyone interested in archaeology--professional and amateur alike, just for the sake of stretching your mind and considering the oddball data that lies far outside the mainstream. Regardless, even if a Pliocene (or older) age for "modern" man is possible, it still wouldn't make me a believer in the Old Testament's mythical account of the creation of this universe--the world is vastly more ancient than creationists like to imagine. And life did not spring to complex forms as if from a gift box, fully developed, etc. But thinking about those interesting Pliocene finds, it's a stretch to imagine advanced hominids living as far back in antiquity as the Precambrian era! The biggest question: What the heck did these smart apes breath? At that period, there was most likely no appreciable oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and the geological record doesn't seem like it's wrong in this case. Now it would make more sense to me that any so-called "artifacts" found in, say, Carboniferous deposits would be more probably extraterrestrial rather than terrestrial in origin--but still it's all rather hard to examine when all this stuff has vanished in the last century--if we can't examine the gold chain found embedded in the piece of coal, then it remains just a story--interesting and provocative--but a story none-the-less.
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Summary: A superb, though-provoking journey into Man's past
Review: Cremo and Thompson have shaken up the staid, orderly world of archaeology with this book, which takes the reader deep into Man's past - which isn't as clear and understandable as the "experts'' would have us believe. I think it's greatest contribution is that it dares to challenge the Darwinian notion of evolution, or even the religious-based idea of divine intervention in Man's creation. By drawing on ancient Vedic scriptures (and who says these are not valid alternatives to the traditional Judaic-Christian sources that we accept as being "the truth''?), the two writers propose that Man has existed in human (not ape) form for tens of millions of years and not just the 100,000 or so that modern archaeology teaches us. They provide extensive fossil evidence for this and although there's more than 800 pages to get through, the message is LOUD AND CLEAR - if you believe in intellectual honesty, then you have to at least accept that some of this evidence is valid. Don't sweep it under the carpet for ultimately, the truth will out.
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Summary: Refreshing
Review: Thank God for Michael Cremo and richard Thompson. Science has always been the search for our reality. They have opened the door to a possibility of our past. There is much more out there than orthodox science can explain. They capture the very nature and essence of the scientific principles and methods. The same methods that the Wright Brothers exibited in their search for the ability for mankind to fly. Never give up that search. You may be closer than you think.
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Summary: Fact or acid trip?
Review: It's hard for me to consider a scientific view from someone that is 'one-sided'. It's like a christian trying to write an unbias book about the origin of religions and the origin of humans, or even more ludicrous, about Satanism. You have said, "I would take that early incident as a sign that I have been a writer in past lives. I believe in reincarnation". And you've also have said, "I suppose the books that have caused the biggest changes in my life are ancient books of spiritual and mystical knowledge. These books seem to have come from some other dimension of reality. They seem to be more than books. They are portals to other levels, other times, other places, other aspects of my own self that have been long forgotten. Particularly influential on my life was Bhagavad-gita As It Is, by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. I got it at a Grateful Dead concert in 1973, and it opened my eyes to a lot of things about my self and the universe..." What I think you got was a strong hit of acid and that was all the influence that you needed, and you then decided to cash in on the psuedo-science market. Please let the "real scientist" take care of the guess work. I'm sure if you try hard enough you'll be able to contact Mr. Garcia on another "level of existence" for some answers and for actual proof. Yeah, that's all we need to do its to get "spirtuality" involved into a subject area which never included its biased followers opinions. I am very open-minded, but when someone is trying to gain creditability through means of posing ones 'acid-trips' as scientifc fact, you won't receive any respect from me, nor anyone else with a brain in their head.
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Summary: At last, a clear-eyed look at the evidence
Review: As someone who abandoned archaeology years ago because too many preconceptions were controlling the interpretation of data, I can only say I'm delighted by this book. Any open-minded person who has ever made a serious study of archaeology can easily see how accepted theory influences the understanding of human history. It is almost like back-engineering, the way archaeologists take evidence and try to fit it to accepted theory, instead of taking the evidence and trying to craft a theory that encompasses it. This book may be heavy, dry going for the average reader but I definitely appreciated the way the authors not only presented the evidence but also presented all the arguments pro and con, leaving me to decide which were the more persuasive. Difficult to believe that Homo sapiens sapiens may have existed in the Pleistocene, or even earlier? No more difficult that believing H. sapiens arrived on the scene only 100,000 years ago. This work may discredit the current time line for evolution of the human race, but it doesn't discredit evolution entirely. An excellent work!
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