Forbidden Archeology

Has human life has been on the planet for a lot longer than 200,000 years?

By Elizabeth Marglin

Caveat emptor: To listen to Michael Cremo interviewed by Regina Meredith on GaiamTV’s Open Minds is to have everything you thought you knew turned upside down. Cremo offers a version of alternative history—and one we are seldom privy to. Described by some as a “dangerous mind,” Cremo is both a scholar and a rebel. Outspoken but reassuring, Cremo lends a persuasive air to even his most outlandish assertions. One thing is clear: No one is going to tell him what to think. Cremo, the child of a military intelligence officer, was brought up on the idea of the existence of secret knowledge, and was always encouraged to dig deeply into his own research. His detective-like background, plus a childhood filled with international travel, was good preparation for a life marked by independent thought.

Cremo’s basic premise is this—human life has been on the planet for a lot longer than 200,000 years. His book Forbidden Archeology goes into the nuts and bolts of this argument, exploring countless incidences in the professional scientific literature of discoveries of human bones, human artifacts, and human footprints millions of years old. No stranger to controversy, Cremo’s evidence contradicts the textbook theories about human origins. He believes that mainstream science suppresses evidence to the contrary in order to maintain the dominance of evolutionary theory. What he calls the “knowledge filtration,” he says, keeps people from knowing that there are actually valid alternatives.