"What Cremo does in `Forbidden Archaeology' is he takes all this stuff that has been confined to the rubbish pile and says, `Look at all this evidence that archaeologists have ignored,"' Marks said. "It's not evidence at all. He believes humans existed in the Precambrian era, but the world was a very different place then. There was no oxygen, there was no life; without multi-cellular organisms, there wouldn't have been anything for them to eat."

Besides, many critics had genuine problems with Forbidden Archaeology that went beyond "Darwinism". For all its densely technical discussions of archaeological anomalies, many critics complained that Cremo and Thompson bombarded readers with abundantly useless data. For example, FA devotes 400 pages to analyzing anomalous stone tools depicted in obscure literature over the past 150 years. Worse, these specimens no longer exist. So FA compensated by providing page after page of drawings taken from their original sources. But in his reprinted review on page 103, Kenneth Feder frets that these illustrations are absolutely useless because it is impossible to determine whether these Paleolithic tools are drawn to scale or accurately rendered.

In Forbidden Archaeology's Impact, Cremo boasts that he's overthrowing the Darwinian worldview; but Darwinism is the study of biology, not Stone Age finds. And Cremo ignores animal evolution entirely. In 2 reprinted letters, Cremo says he's writing a book that cites land plants found in Cambrian strata (from reports published 50 years earlier) and fossils of flowering plants found in Jurassic strata (about 213-144 million years ago). Most paleobotanists say that angiosperms didn't appear until the late Cretaceous period (about 70 million years ago). But Cremo never explains why these potential revelations threaten biological evolution.

In their separate reviews reprinted in this book, Tarzia and Bradley Lepper revealed Cremo's biological misunderstandings while critiquing his "ape-man" chapter. Forbidden Archaeology and its abridged version, Hidden History of the Human Race, claimed that Bigfoot, Yeti, and other backcountry "wildmen" really exist and threaten evolution. Why? Because if someone caught a live Sasquatch, that would prove ancient hominids still coexist with modern humans.

But on page 159, Tarzia accuses Cremo and Thompson of "ignoring the possibility of shared common ancestry." Cremo's 14-page rebuttal to Tarzia ignores that criticism. On page 203, Lepper says, "Cremo and Thompson devote an entire chapter to reports of 'living ape-men' such as Bigfoot, which, even if true, contribute nothing to their thesis that anatomically modern humans lived in geologically recent times. Chimpanzees are 'ape-men' of a sort, sharing 99% of our genetic makeup, and their coexistence with Homo sapiens sapiens does no violence to evolutionary theory."

Cremo's response to Lepper on page 213 is oddly revealing: "While evidence of the coexistence of anatomically modern humans with more apelike hominids today does not do any violence to evolutionary theory, their coexistence in the distant past would do some violence to it. And the evidence documented in Hidden History suggests that they did coexist in the distant past."

I read that passage over and over, trying to make sense of Cremo's response. If he concedes that humans and nonhuman hominids coexisting today would not undermine human evolution, then what was the purpose of his ape-man chapter to begin with? And if modern humans and apelike hominids coexisted in the distant past, paleoanthropologists will always presume that they shared an even earlier ancestry. For example, even though some paleontologists and ornithologists currently disagree over whether birds diverged from Cretaceous maniraptorans (a specific group of dinosaurs) or earlier Triassic thecodonts (tree-dwelling reptiles), neither side claims their disagreement invalidates the conclusions of common ancestry for dinosaurs and birds.

What's more, Cremo is oblivious to biological context. One of many reasons why scientists accept evolution is because humans share numerous anatomical traits with all living mammals, not just primates. But if we embrace the notion that modern people lived on earth 600 million years ago, long before the arrival of other mammals, reptiles, fish, vertebrates, or any animal with a skeleton or hard body part, then biological patterns would be rendered senseless.

Even if we overlook the implausibility of humans' thriving in an oxygen-starved world without available food sources, think about what it would mean to have people living on earth, eons before the first arthropods arrived. Finding fossilized humans at every level of the geologic column would not be anomalous at all. Those finds would be the rule, not the exception, and a Darwinian paradigm would have never seized a foothold to begin with.

But of all the criticisms aimed at Forbidden Archaeology, Cremo objects most to those who labeled it pseudoscience, which is understandable. Cremo and Thompson toiled for 8 years on this comprehensive reference work, and calling it a pseudoscience is the same thing as labeling it a fraud. But when I read Forbidden Archaeology's Impact's reprinted correspondence that Cremo exchanged with his sympathizers and supporters, he appears too stubborn and sanctimonious to follow scientific rules. For example, if Cremo and Thompson wanted their debut to be taken seriously, they should have first submitted their findings through an extensive peer-review process, but Cremo thinks "peer-review" simply means conspiracy and censorship. Like all creationists, Cremo's not looking for real answers - just believers.

Next, let's examine portions of the two following letters that Cremo wrote to his supporters. This first one on page 300, is addressed to Dr Horst Friedrich:

    In your review, you note that Richard Thompson and I did not discuss the idea of recurring catastrophes or the evidence for advanced civilization mentioned in the Vedic literatures of India. That was deliberate on our part. In Forbidden Archaeology we wanted first of all to demonstrate the need for an alternative view of human origins. In our next book, tentatively titled The Descent of Man Revisited, we shall outline the alternative, drawing extensively upon Vedic source material. This will include, of course, the recurring cataclysms of the yuga cycles and manvantara periods, as well as discussion of Vedic descriptions of advanced civilization in ancient times, and in an interplanetary context as well. I hope that will satisfy you! A new picture of human origins will have to be comprehensive, in the manner you suggest in your NEARA Journal article, incorporating evidence not only for archaeological and geological anomalies, but also paranormal phenomena of all types, including evidence for extraterrestrial civilization.

That's only the beginning. Cremo goes on to describe, in complete detail, 3 unique avatarian manifestations of the Godhead and explains how Shrila Prabhupada spread Krishna consciousness around the world through God's "confidential empowerment". The religious significance of Cremo's research is paramount.

However, Forbidden Archaeology's harshest critics were paleoanthropologists, and it was amusing to watch Cremo lecture professional scientists on how to do their jobs. He even admonished Lepper for not properly understanding Thomas Kuhn's prerequisites for scientific revolutions. Yet despite all this, read the following portion of this letter addressed to Dr William Howells on page 337:

    Historically, I would say that the Judaeo-Christian tradition helped prepare the way for the mechanistic worldview by depopulating the universe of its demigods and spirits and discrediting most paranormal occurrences, with the exception of a few miracles mentioned in the Bible. Science took the further step of discrediting the few remaining kinds of acceptable miracles, especially after David Hume's attack upon them. Essentially, Hume said if it comes down to a choice between believing reports of paranormal occurrences, even by reputable witnesses, or rejecting the laws of physics, it is more reasonable to reject the testimony of the witnesses to paranormal occurrences, no matter how voluminous and well attested. Better to believe the witnesses were mistaken or lying. In my opinion, there is even today quite a lot of evidence for paranormal phenomena. Unfortunately, this evidence tends to be suppressed in the intellectual centers of society by the same process of knowledge filtration that tends to suppress physical evidence that contradicts general evolutionary ideas.

In other words, Cremo not only accuses the "scientific establishment" of rejecting the paranormal; but also claims that mainstream scientists are immersed in a conspiracy to suppress its evidence. And he has the effrontery to wonder why scientists won't take him seriously?

Frankly, I appreciate Cremo's courage to express his paranormal leanings so candidly. "Intelligent Design" creationists, in contrast, often wriggle and squirm when confronted with theirs. Let me say that if anybody is interested in the cultural and religious groundwork, sincere personal motivations, and epistemological methods employed by Hindu "creation science", Forbidden Archaeology's Impact is the most comprehensive, conclusive reference work on this topic.

Ono sto je Kremo uradio u "Zabranjenoj arheologiji" jeste da je uzeo veliki broj gluposti sa hrpe smeca i rekao: "pogledajte sve ove dokaze koje arheolozi ignorisu". To uopste nisu nikakvi dokazi. On veruje da su ljudi ziveli u Prekambriji, ali tada je svet bio mnogo drugacije mesto. Nije bilo kiseonika, nije bilo zivota. Bez visecelijskih organizama, ne bi bilo nicega sto bi ti ljudi mogli da jedu.

Osim toga, mnogi od kriticara imaju pravi problem sa "Zabranjenom arheologijom" koji ide mnogo dalje od Darvinizma. Mnogi kriticari se zale da su u svojim opsirnim tehnickim diskusijama arheoloskih anomalija Kremo i Tompson bombardovali citaoce obiljem beskorisnih podataka. Na primer, u "Zabranjenoj arheologiji" je izdvojeno oko 400 strana za analizu cudnog kamenog orudja opisanog u opskurnoj knjizevnosti (misli se na mitove, legende i slicno). Sto je jos gore, ovi primerci vise ne postoje. Zato ZA to kompenzuje dajuci njihove skice, dobijene od originalnih vlasnika. Kenet Feder u svojoj kritici ZA, na strani 103 kaze da su ove ilustracije potpuno beskorisne jer je nemoguce utvrditi da li su ovi paleolitski alati umanjeni ili precizno prikazani.

U "ZA: Uticaj", Kremo se hvali kako je oborio darvinisticki pogled na svet; ali Darvinizam je proucavanje biologije, a ne nalaza iz kamenog doba. Takodje, Kremo u potpunosti ignorise evoluciju zivotinja. U 2 objavljena pisma, Kremo izjavljuje da pise knjigu u kojoj navodi biljke koje su nadjene u naslagama iz Kambrije (iz izvestaja koji su stari 50 godina) i fosile cvetnih biljaka pronadjenih u naslagama iz doba Jure (pre oko 213 miliona godina). Vecina paleobotanicara tvrdi da se angiosperme (cvetnice) nisu pojavile sve do kasne Krede (pre oko 70 miliona godina). Kremo nikada nije objasnio zasto ova potencijalna otkrica mogu ugroziti biolosku evoluciju.

U svojim odvojenim recenzijama ove knjige, Tarzija (Tarzia, Wade (1994), "Forbidden Archaeology : Antievolutionism Outside the Christian Arena) i Bredli Leper (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mom/lepper.html) otkrivaju Kremoova pogresna shvatanja, kritikujuci poglavje o coveku-majmunu. ZA i njena skracena verzija - Sakrivena (tajna) istorija ljudske rase tvrde da Veliko stopalo, Jeti i drugi "divljaci" zaista postoje i prete evoluciji. Zasto? Jer ako bi neko uhvatio ziv primerak Velikog stopala (drugo ime na engleskom za Sasquatch je Big Foot) to bi pokazalo da drevni hominidi postoje zajedno sa modernim ljudima.

No, na stranici 159 Tarzija je optuzio Kremoa i Tompsona da ignorisu mogucnost postojanja zajednickog pretka. Kremo, u svojoj 14-ostranicnoj replici Tarziji ignorise ovu kritiku.
Na strani 203, Leper kaze: "Kremo i Tompson posvecuju citavo poglavlje izvestajima o "zivim ljudima-majmunima" kao sto je Veliko stopalo, koji, cak i kada bi bili tacni, ne doprinose njihovoj tezi o ranim modernim ljudima koji su ziveli geoloski nedavno (videti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale). Simpanze su vrsta majmuna-ljudi, sa kojima delimo 99% genetskog sastava i njihov suzivot sa Homo sapiens sapiens-ima ne kosi se sa teorijom evolucije.

Kremoov odgovor Leperu, na starni 213 neobicno otkriva:
"Dok se dokaz koegzistencije anatomski modernog coveka sa vise majmunolikih hominida danas ne kosi sa teorijom evolucije, njihov suzivot u proslosti bi to cinio. Dokazi dokumentovani u Tajnoj istoriji ljudske vrste navode na pomisao da oni jesu koegzistirali."