Cremo's "evidence" is hyped-up frauds, errors, and nonsense. And yes, I've read the book. His stuff doesn't even pass the laugh test, much less rise to the level of "very convincing evidence".
From an earlier post of mine:
Michaelo Cremo is a crank who makes outrageous claims to sell his books and get paid to go on the lecture circuit. From his own website:
Michael Cremo is on the cutting edge of science and culture issues. In the course of a few months time he might be found lecturing at a scientific conference, appearing on a national television show, touring sacred sites in India, or speaking to an alternative science gathering.This is a guy who makes his career and fame on the basis of catering to the "strange mysteries" crowd.But looking at his actual evidence, it's clear why he publishes his "research" in mass-market books instead of in peer-reviewed science journals...
Looking at the earliest page of "evidence" in the table (26-55 million years ago), we find primarily "eoliths" and "paleoliths".
The problem is that these are hardly firm "evidence" for human civilization. They're rocks. Needless to say, rocks are pretty common on the Earth even without human invervention.
A "paleolith" is a stone tool. Unfortunately, as should be pretty obvious, a piece of rock in isolation may be a stone tool, or may be a natural hunk of rock -- there's no real way to tell without finding other nearby evidence of human habitation. If all Cremo has to offer is the find of a "paleolith" -- and not an accompanying more clear sign of humanity -- then all he has is "we found a rock, and it looks to me like it could have been used as a tool". Not very convincing, unless you're really straining.
"Eoliths" are even more of a problem, because anthropologists in general this century have abandoned all belief in "eoliths" as any sort of evidence altogether. An eolith is a rounded rock with scars or markings that were previously thought may have been human in origin. However, it was later found that such rocks are of natural origin.
From Creationism: The Hindu View:Likewise for the fleeting references to "chalk ball", "cut wood", and "carved stone". Balls of stone, chalk, and other substances can occur naturally due to the action of waves, flowing water, or especially glaciers. "Cut wood" could have been sliced in a variety of natural methods, and "carved stone" is in the eye of the beholder.Now, palaeoanthropology is a speciality of mine, but archaeology is not, so I showed the book ["Forbidden Archeology"] to a couple of colleagues whose speciality it is. Dr. Andrée Rosenfeld was not highly delighted, but offered some comments on the book's long, long, discussion of Eoliths. These are (no, were) supposed stone tools from extremely ancient deposits, believed in by many archaeologists in earlier generations but now universally discounted.
"The problem", Andrée explained, "lies in their selective emphasis and choice of language; have they not heard of semiotics? For example, on p 106 they quote an early objector to eoliths, Worthington Smith in 1892, and totally misunderstand its significance; eoliths can be extracted from any gravel from any period, whether with or without other artefacts, and with any range of patina - eoliths in fact only ocur, as far as I am aware, in gravel or similar deposits." That is to say, in any deposit with lots of small stones in it, you are going to find some stones that by chance resemble crude artefacts! "They have not examined eoliths, but present a value laden discussion of the lterature. The question is not 'could such fractures arise from hominid action' but could such fractures (or other marks) arise naturally - and if so, they cannot be taken as evidence for hominid presence."
As for the two claims of "human skeletons", I could find no reference at all to the alleged de Mortillet find (itself a suspicious sign). But I do note that de Mortillet was an anthropologist who studied artifacts and remains found in caves. One has to wonder if Cremo has misread one of de Mortillet's cave finds and mistakenly presumed that the bones within dated back to the age of the surrounding rock...
The other alleged "skeleton", however, shows the sloppiness of Cremo's work and either his gullibility or his dishonesty. That skull, known as the Calaveras skull, has been thoroughly examined and shown conclusively to be modern (no more than a thousand years old), *not* many millions of years old as Cremo asserts.
For information on the Calaveras skull, see The Calaveras Skull Revisited , or The Museum of Hoaxes. Hell, even the 1911 Encyclopedia entry for it expressed serious doubts about its authenticity -- so what excuse does Cremo (and other creationists) have for still presenting it as "evidence" 92 years later?
I regret to inform you that creationists are often preyed upon by con men, hucksters, cranks, and the misguided.
You mean like those con men who come up with Nebraska Man, Piltdown man and Lucy?