reply to post by lonegurkha
What I don't understand is why supress this?
A better question may be, is it being suppressed at all?
Having watched about half the video, I had a little google using the terms 'Valsequillo' and 'Hueyatlaco'. I found plenty of discussion about the
ongoing scientific controversy, with quite a few publications putting forward evidence to support the various positions – and, it seems, a fair
amount of acceptance within the archaeological community that, while the dating of the Hueyatlaco strata to around a quarter of a million years is
very anomalous with respect to the current picture of human evolution and geographical diffusion,
it is probably valid. The methods used and
the competence of the researchers are not in serious doubt.
The
Wikipedia page on Hueyatlaco gives a very clear, concise account of the controversy, describing
the various claims, quoting and often linking to the publications in which they are made. Clearly, there's not much suppression going on within the
scientific community.
But earlier, it is true, there
were two parties trying to keep the Hueyatlaco research quiet.
One was Jose Lorenzo, the elderly Mexican academic who accused
Cynthia Irwin-Williams,
the eminent archaeologist who led the first excavation at Hueyatlaco, of salting the site with artefacts. He also appears to have threatened her
Mexican fieldworkers and had 'confessions' of salting extracted from them under duress. Parties associated with him may also have been behind the
mysterious disappearance of Wilson's Hueyatlaco finds in Mexico. Dating these vanished artefacts would resolve the controversy once and for all.
Lorenzo's motive seems to have been simple professional jealousy combined with macho male chauvinism. There may have been a political angle, though;
traditionally, in Mexico, there has been friction between the
Mestizos, the people with Spanish blood who tended to be landowners and members
of the elite, and the
Indios, most of whom were dirt-poor and harshly exploited. There have been many revolts and uprisings in Mexico's
history, and key members of the government and the
mestizo upper class may have been persuaded by Lorenzo that a prior claim to the territory
of Mexico going back 20,000 years might strengthen the hands of the
Indios and their sympathisers. Academics in poor, backward countries, who
are usually members of their countries' tiny, closely connected elites, are well known for this kind of skullduggery; frankly, there's quite a lot
of it where I live. But remember, all this was a very long time ago and Mexico is a different country now.
The other person trying to suppress information about Hueyatlaco – in this case, the stratigraphic dating evidence – was, oddly enough, Williams
herself. As her protégé, Virginia Steen-McIntyre, explains in the video, her reasons were simply that she didn't think the dating was credible, and
feared the disbelief and ridicule that might result from their publication. Having already been burned once by the Lorenzo affair, she must have
feared greatly for her reputation and career. It's notable that the list of publications on her Wikipedia page contains nothing about Hueyatlaco, and
she is known to have broken with many of her colleagues over the dating issue. However, Williams died in 1990 after years of chronic respiratory
illness (a career spent inhaling rock chips will do that to you) and any influence she might once have wielded is no more.
So yes, there was suppression, but not at all systematic and ultimately unsuccessful – apart, of course, from the critical issue of the stolen
artefacts. But it was carried out long ago by individuals, largely for personal reasons. There is honestly nothing to suggest a cover-up by the
scientific community, or by the present authorities Mexico, or a shadowy cabal of the Mexican or global elite, or anyone else of that kind.
The debate continues, unsuppressed. See, for example,
The stratigraphic debate at
Hueyatlaco, Valsequillo, Mexico by Harold E. Malde, Virginia Steen-McIntyre, Charles W. Naeser, and Sam L. VanLandingham.