Calico Early Man Site

Many times during research, we come across a lot of interesting facts. Most research is pretty straight forward but this blog's research turned out to be something unexpected - a very curvy bit of history was discovered.

Anthropology and archaeology are high interests for both Laureen and John and one place they have visited in the past was the Calico Early Man Site which is about 15 miles northeast of the city of Barstow, near the town of Yermo, in Southern California.

The history of the Calico Early Man Site is fascinating, with big time scientific names putting the place on the map for a potential history changing event. 

When did early humans actually populate the Americas? That question was thought to be solidly answered with evidence that approximately 12,000 or so years ago the first humans ventured upon the lands later to become the United States. Of course, some anthropologists postulated that it could be as early as 30,000 years ago but all of this up to interpretation of sites found around the country.

Then along comes the premier anthropologist of his day, Louis Leakey to shake the academic world up like a can of dropped soda.

While Leakey was working in the British Museum in 1959, he had an encounter with a fellow scientist which would change his remaining years forever. The world renowned discoverer of million-year-old hominids in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania was suddenly looking at what appeared to be early stone tools from a place named Calico. San Bernardino archaeologist, Ruth DeEtte (Dee) Simpson had visited Leakey in London to obtain his professional judgment on what she had carried half way across the world. Was what Leakey seeing simply naturally formed geofacts or truly human made artifacts?

The British Museum - London

A geofact is a naturally occurring ‘flaking’ of a rock that can appear to be made by the human hand whereas an artifact was created by a human from the past.

The celebrity anthropologist believed that the oddly sharpened stones he was holding were truly man-made. These tools were very similar to ones he had discovered, along with his spouse, Mary, from early human dig sites from around the globe.

Geofacts or Artifacts - you judge

By 1963, Leakey had garnered the support of National Geographic Society which funded the dig site where Leakey, along with Simpson, spent considerable time from 1964 until 1970.

Simpson and Leakey at the Calico Early Man Site

What he found or believed he had found tarnished, and some in the anthropological spectrum believed ruined his credibility totally.

In 1970, Louis Leakey conducted an audio recording for the Pleistocene Coalition News. In this recording, Leakey came up with some pretty hard to swallow statements concerning objects being found in what would later be known as the Calico Early Man Site.

“I have consistently refused to say more about Calico than that it is over 50,000. And I have consistently warned the crew that it may be a great deal more than over 50. But the safe thing is to say that it is certainly over 50 – beyond the range of carbon dating.” (official transcripts from PCN).

Some of his statements concluded that the site showed evidence of human settlement of over 200,000 years.

Leakey’s idea that over 60,000 hand tools had been created at the site without the tiniest bit of human habitation evidence, besides the tools, caused skeptics to simply shake their heads. 

The basis for his theory was there were too many different languages/dialects within the native population of America to have developed within the past 12,000 to 15,000 years (typically agreed upon years by most anthropologists). He believed that many more thousands of years would be needed for the variety and different languages that were being spoken across the Americas.

If, Louis Leakey’s calculations were correct, then the Calico Early Man Site would be the oldest human location ever found in the Western Hemisphere. 

Louis Leakey was so adamant about his finds and would not stand down from them that Mary Leakey and he split up in 1968 after decades together searching the earth for any signs of past human life. Together they had made remarkable finds but this Calico obsession of her husband’s was too much for Mary.

“I ended by losing my professional respect for Louis; and it had been very great indeed,” she wrote in her autobiography after Louis’s death in 1972.

Louis and Mary Leakey in Tanzania - happier times

Of course, this brought out disbelief and worse for those in the academic world. It was called a hoax or worse, Louis Leakey’s last attempt at fame.  

But was the site a hoax or truly a discovery to match the ones Louis Leakey and his spouse, Mary had found in many of their most famous early human digs?

The Controversy begins

It is known that the area compromising Barstow, Yermo, and Daggett was once a large fresh body of water named Lake Manix. The last major glacial episode, during the Pleistocene age, approximately 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago the area was covered with thick ice which slowly melted. Lakes such as Manix formed about 400 to 500 hundred thousand years ago.

Map of dig site(s) and where Manix Lake once covered the area

During this era, the area surrounding the large lake was lush with grass and a variety of plants allowing such animals such as camels, mammoths, saber-tooth cats, eagles, ducks, and whole plethora of other animals to exist.

The lake emptied about 18,000 years ago – probably due to tectonic movements during earthquakes along the Manix Fault, leaving behind what we now know as the Mojave Desert. With that draining and thousands of years of drying the lake bed turned into what we now recognize as the Mohave Desert. Most of the animals, except a few like coyotes and rabbits, became extinct.

In 1972, after Louis Leakey’s death, the area was taken over by the California Bureau of Land Management and soon the site was open to the public. 

The following decades the site was visited year round by the curious, the amateur anthropologist, the college student, and anyone interested in knowing the hidden history of the desert.

Unfortunately, this historical site in the Mohave Desert was closed to visitors approximately two years ago, according to Katrina Symons, Field Manager for the Bureau of Land Management at the Barstow office.

“The extent of the damage was enough that the bureau decided it had to close it,” Symons stated while discussing the vandalism and theft which occurred at the site. “Vandals tore doors off of the two cabins which are at the site along with stealing various items from those cabins. The damage was extensive.”

There's also another reason for the sudden closure of the site. “There is a very serious chance of the Hantavirus at the location,” Symons stated. “That is why the area is secured with double fencing. No one is allowed out there until these concerns are first taken care of.”

The Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome is a highly contagious respiratory disease which is transmitted by infected deer mice and other wild rodents, according to the Centers for Disease Control website. The area of the site is home to many of such rodents which could be infected with the disease.

The Bureau of Land Management considers the entire area of the Calico Early Man Site as a public health safety concern, according to Symons.

But, they're so cute

When the site will re-open depends, according to Symons, when the bureau receives funding from the Federal Government. “Before there are any repairs, we must get the all clear on an environmental analysis of the area, especially around the cabins.”

I said, I don't know when it will re-open. Why'd you ask again?

On a side note, when asked separately concerning the controversy of the findings at the site, Symons stated: “The job of the bureau is to honor historical sites such as the Calico Early Man Site and does not delve into the authenticity of the findings. With Louis Leakey working here, it is a definite historical site.”