2023 C.R.A.P. AWARD – NEVADA SHOE PRINTS MADE MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO ACCORDING TO CREATIONISTS:

2023 C.R.A.P. (Certifiable Rock Art Prevarication) Award goes to "Creation Science."

Alleged shoe print from Nevada. Image from howandwhys.com.

The 2023 C.R.A.P. Award goes not to the people cited in the references below, but to the idea that they are pushing back against – supposed shoe tracks in Arizona that have been claimed to be many millions of years old by Creationists. Let me restate that, I am not criticizing the reports, I am criticizing the crazy ideas of fringie Creationists. These discoveries were supposedly made in the 1920s in Pershing County, Nevada. Reports are somewhat fuzzy since they state that the discoveries were found in a coal seam in Fisher Canyon yet the quote from the supposed discoverer states he found it on a hillside. I am going to visit reports on two different versions of the discovery. One individual who remains anonymous created a phony photograph of the footprint and put it up online – to him as an individual I award a special C.R.A.P. Award.

Creationists, the people who argue that human beings and dinosaurs co-existed, leap on misinterpretations and frauds such as this to try to prove their strange beliefs which they now often call ‘Creation Science.’

"Creation science rejects evolution and the common descent of all living things on Earth. Instead, it asserts that the field of evolutionarey biology is itself pseudoscientific or even a religion. Creationists argue instead for a system call baraminology, which considers the living world to be descended from uniquely created kinds or 'baramins.' Creation science incorporates the concept of catastrophism to reconcile current landforms and fossil distributions with Biblical interpretations, proposint the remains resulted from successive cataclysmic events, such as a worldwide flood and subsequent ice age. It rejects one of the fundamentral principles of modern geology (and of modern science generally), uniformitarianism, which applies the same physical and geological observed on the Earth today to interpret the Earth's geological history." (Wikipedia) They believe that early humans co-existed with dinosaurs - sort of like Alley Oop. So this quoted passage describes the fringies who believe in these things - now the the actual belief on shoeprints in Arizona many millions of years old, which is anything but science.

Another view of the alleged shoe print from Nevada. Image from anomalien.com.

A 2006 report by Glen Kuban describes in detail the supposed discovery and provides an analysis of the claim. “A number of strict creationists and "ancient anomaly" enthusiasts have claimed that a "shoe print" was found in Triassic rock near Fisher Canyon, Pershing County, Nevada. Although most of these authors state that the print was found by John Reid in 1922 (or 1927 according to some), evidently it was actually found by Albert E. Knapp, an employee of Nevada Mining Company, on or before January 15th, 1917.” (Kuban 2006)

In 2021 Vicky Verma quoted the discoverer of the supposed footprint: “He wrote: ‘In descending the hill my attention was attracted by the fossil, which lay fossil side uppermost amongst some loose rocks. I picked it upl and put it in my pocket for further examination, and on such examination came to the conclusion that it is a layer from the heel of a show which had been pulled from the balance of the heel by suction; the rock being in a plastic state at the time. I found it in limestone of the Triassic period, a belt of which runs through that section of the hills.’ Later, Reid somehow took the fossilized shoeprint to New York and had it analyzed by a competent geologist of the Rockefeller Foundation, who verified Mr. Knapp and pronounced it unquestionably Triassic limestone.” (Verma 2021) Now we have to remember that this was 100 years ago, a time when the public was less informed about science. I am, however, mystified as to how a so-called geologist could have made such a misidentification.

Drawing of alleged shoe print with the missing portion filled in. Image from Verma, 2020.

“In 1922, two reports on the alleged shoeprint were published in the New York Times and the American Weekly section of the New York Sunday American respectively. According to the second report by W. H. Ballou, John T. Reid discovered the fossil (which was obviously a mistake). The report said: ‘Some time ago, while he was prospecting for fossils in Nevada, John T. Reid, a distinguished mining engineer, and geologist stopped suddenly and looked down in utter bewilderment and amazement at a rock near his feet. For there, a part of the rock itself was what seemed to be a human footprint! Closer inspection showed that it was not a mark of a naked foot, but was, apparently, a shoe sole which had been turned into stone. The forepart was missing. But there was the outline of at least two-thirds of it, and around this outline ran a well-defined sewn thread which had, it appeared, attached the welt to the sole. Further on was another line of sewing, and in the center, where the foot would have rested had the object really been a show sole, there was an indentation, exactly such as would have been made by the bone of the heel rubbing upon and wearing down the material of which the sole had been made. Thus was found a fossil which is the foremost mystery of science today. For the rock in which it was found is at least 5 million years old.” (Verma 2021)  

Kuban is quite straightforward with his long and fair analysis and then his discounting of the claims. “The "Nevada shoe print" claims are not well supported by the available evidence. The footprint advocates have presumed that the missing portion of the object was very shoe-like in shape, whereas any number of other shapes are possible. They have not demonstrated that the supposed print was ever part of a striding sequence, or that it contains the detailed "stitching" features they assert. The present location of the object is unknown, impeding further study. Judging from the available photographs, the specimen is most likely a broken ironstone concretion, perhaps one that has suffered some erosion.” (Kuban 2006)

Fraudulent image of the Nevada shoe print. Online image, public domain.

Photos of the 1920s ‘fossil’ clearly show a broken and eroded concretion. But the claim resurfaced recently with a much more convincing photograph of a shoe or bootprint in stone. This counterfeit seems to be the product of another Creationist fringie trying to strengthen their case. The more recent image appears to be a photographic manipulation of two negatives, one of a rock surface and the other one of a footprint.  The fact it shows a tread pattern marks it a modern as prehistoric footwear did not have this typed of treads on the bottom of the sole. Online reports claiming the discovery of this second shoeprint seem to parrot the reports of the 1920s discovery but with the illustrations replaced with the newly counterfeited photograph. Of course, nowadays this second image could also have been a computer creation.

Newly created fraudulent shoe print created by DALL-E-2.

On the subject of this new photograph – the counterfeited one – as a test I went to DALL-E-2 and asked it to make a picture of the tread marks of a boot print in the rock of a cliff face. This is my version of the counterfeited photograph. With a little more time and more specific instructions I am confident that DALL-E-2 and I could have made one much like the counterfeit shoe print.

I want to reiterate that this C.R.A.P. Award is not being awarded to the authors of the reports I cite below to whom I am grateful for the information, but to the fringies who believe this sort of thing. Whether it is petroglyphs of dinosaurs or the fossilized imprint of a shoe or boot wearing foot from 15 or 200 million years ago – absurd.

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Kuban, Glen J., 2006, Nevada Shoe Print?, http://paleo.cc/paluxy/nevada.htm. Accessed online 9 December 2023.

Verma, Vicky, 2021, Mystery of Alleged 200 Million-Year-Old Shoe Print Found in Nevada in 1917, https://www.howandwhys.com. Accessed online 9 December 2023.

Wikipedia, Creation Science, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science. Accessed online 11 December 2023.

HUMAN AND DINOSAUR COEXISTENCE:

Supposed Cambodian stegosaur

carving, artalien.net

Episode ten of season four on Ancient Aliens, on H2 channel, was named Aliens and Dinosaurs. This program proved the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs by various lines of evidence. One was the stone carving at Angkor that seems to portray a stegosaur. One was a dinosaur track site in Texas that includes what they identified as a human footprint along with the petrified dinosaur imprints. And finally, they dragged out the Ica Stones as proof.

First - the Cambodian temple stegosaur is a decorative carving of an animal in a rondelle on a temple at Angkor

"Young earth creationists Don Patton, Carl Baugh, and some of their associates and followers have argued that a stone carving on the wall of the Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia was based on a live Stegosaurus dinosaur seen by the artist. There are problems with this interpretation, even aside from extensive evidence that humans did not appear on earth until at least 60 million years after non-avian dinosaurs* went extinct. First, the image in question differs in several significant ways from actual stegosaurs. Second, the main evidence for the Stegosaurus interpretation consists of a row of lobes along the back of the carving animal. Although superficially resembling the bony back plates of stegosaurs, there are a number of alternate explanations, including the possibility that they merely represent background vegetation or decorative flourishes, similar to many others on and around other carvings on the temple. The lobes may also represent exaggerated dorsal spines of a chameleon or other lizard. When all features and factors are considered, the carving is at least as compatible with a rhinoceros or chameleon as a stegosaur. Moreover, even if it represents a stegosaur, the carving could have been based on fossil remains rather than the artist seeing a live stegosaur." (Kuban 2014)

"Ta Prohm is the modern name for a temple at Angkor, Cambodia. It was built in the late 1100's and early 1400's as a Buddhist monastery. Originally called Rajavihara, it was among many other Buddhist and Hindu temples produced by the Khmer civilization from the eighth through the fourteenth century A.D. The temple was commissioned by self-proclaimed "god-king" Jayavarman VII, one of the most renowned monarchs and builders of the empire. Statues depicting him in Buddha-like poses are found throughout the region. Ta Prohm was built in honor of his mother and dedicated in 1186. The temple's stele records that it was home to more than 12,500 people, including 18 high priests and 615 dancers, with 80,000 thousands more people in surrounding villages providing various services and supplies. Some question whether these figures may involve some exaggeration, but clearly the temple was an active and impressive complex." (Kuban 204)

The protagonists of the young earth Creation theory argue that most of the carvings in these panels are detailed enough to allow the viewer to identify exactly which animal is being portrayed, and yes, many of them are that exact. But many others are not. Indeed, it is the details that are argued on both sides because that is what there is to analyze. What we see in the rondelle is an apparently four-legged animal, with fairly thick legs, relatively large horns on top of the head, a pointed tail, and a high-curved-back above which are a row of decorative petals to fill the background of the rondelle. There are no spikes on the tail - stegosaurus had large spikes on his tail. Stegosaurus did not have horns on his head, and his head was relatively much smaller than in the carving. As to the identification of the plates across his back upon which the whole identification rests, many of the other decorative rondelles there (and dozens can be found online) fill the background space with a range of petals as if the creature is in front of a flower. I do not believe that these are meant to be connected with the animal at all.

Unidentified figure second down from the so-called stegosaur. Credit: Colin Burns, from Kuban, Fig. 11, http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-cambodia.htm

If we have to take seriously the Creationist's arguments about anatomical correctness, then I need to hear them give a logical explanation for the creature portrayed in the second rondelle down from the so-called stegosaur. It portrays an ugly little naked humanoid with a tail and legs like a goat.  If the one carving proves that humans and dinosaurs co-existed on 12th century Cambodia, then this other carving seemingly proves that the ancient Greek god Pan was there with both the humans and dinosaurs too. And do the Creationists really want to get into explaining the pros and cons of that?

Second - As to the dinosaur track site in Texas including a human footprint, that was bogus. It was easy to see that what they were identifying as a human footprint was just a portion of a larger dinosaur track, apparently a three-toed therapod track. I will refer you to Glenn Kuban's excellent online analysis debunking this one (see reference listing below).

And third - the Ica stones. One of the so-called experts that they had testifying to the importance of the Ica stones was so ignorant that he kept calling them Inca stones. On April 25, 2915 I posted a column titled DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART - PERU'S ICA STONES, in which I expressed my reasoning why I believe them to be modern forgeries instead of ancient artifacts. However, I should add that if they are not forgeries - if they actually prove that humans and dinosaurs coexisted, the fact that they are modern not ancient supposedly proves that humans and dinosaurs are still coexisting somewhere, but that gets us way too far into cryptozoology, and is not my field.

All in all, episode ten of season four of Ancient Aliens was laughable, but unfortunately some people actually seem to believe this stuff. Maybe we need the aliens after all, there still isn't enough intelligent life on this planet.

REFERENCES: 

Kuban, Glenn

2014    Man Tracks? A Topical Summary of the Paluxy "Man Track" Controversy, http://paleo.cc/paluxy/mantrack.htm

2014    Stegosaur Carving on a Cambodian Temple?, http://paleo.cc/paluxy/stegosaur-claim.htm

Dinosaurs in Ancient Cambodian Temple, http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-cambodia.htm

DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART - PERU’S ICA STONES:

Ica stone of a man riding a triceratops. Wikipedia.

Whenever the conversation on dinosaurs in rock art is brought up one will invariably hear about the Ica Stones from Peru.

“The Ica stones are a collection of andesite stones found in Ica Province, Peru that bear a variety of diagrams. Some of them have depictions of dinosaurs and what is alleged to be advanced technology, and these are easily recognized as modern curiosities or hoaxes.

From the 1960s Javier Cabrera Darquea collected and popularized the stones, obtaining many of them from a farmer named Basilio Uschuya. Uschuya, after claiming them to be real ancient artifacts, admitted to creating the carvings he had sold and said he produced a patina by baking the stones in cow dung.

This is, by the way, also the method used to produce the black finish on the pots made by the famous potter Maria from San Ildefonso. It is not part of a natural weathering process at all.

Ica stone of a man fighting dinosaurs

(allosaurs or tyrannosaurs). Internet.

Some of the images are of flowers, fish, or living animals of various sorts. Others appear to depict scenes which would be anachronistic in pre-Columbian art, namely extinct animals, such as dinosaurs, advanced medical works and maps.

 

Ica stone illustrating brain surgery. Internet.

Meanwhile, in 1966, Peruvian physician Javier Cabrera Darquea was presented with a stone that had a carved picture of a fish, which Cabrera believed to be of an extinct species. Cabrera's father had begun a collection of similar stones in the 1930s, and based on his interest in Peruvian prehistory, Cabrera began collecting more. He initially purchased more than 300 from two brothers, Carlos and Pablo Soldi, who also collected pre-Incan artifacts, who claimed they had unsuccessfully attempted to interest archaeologists in them. Cabrera later found another source of the stones, a farmer named Basilio Uschuya, who sold him thousands more. Cabrera's collection burgeoned, reaching more than 11,000 stones in the 1970s. Cabrera published a book, The Message of the Engraved Stones of Ica on the subject, discussing his theories of the origins and meaning of the stones. In this he argued that the stones show "that man is at least 405 million years old" and that what he calls gliptolithic man, humans from another planet, and that "Through the transplantation of cognitive codes to highly intelligent primates, the men from outer space created new men on earth." The Ica stones achieved greater popular interest when Cabrera abandoned his medical career and opened a museum to feature several thousand of the stones in 1996. In 1973 during an interview with Erich von Däniken, Uschuya stated he had faked the stones that he had sold“. (Wikipedia) 

 

Ica stone with dinosaurs. Wikipedia.

What is so surprising to me is that some people take these things seriously. We know the old inhabitants of this area as well or better than we know the ancient inhabitants of anywhere on earth except possibly Egypt. Not only are there Spanish colonial records of what they found when they conquered their South American territories, we have a long running record of archaeological investigations. Ica is found on the coastal desert of Peru along the Pacific ocean. This is one of the driest regions in the world and preservation of organic remains is better here than almost anywhere else known to archaeologists. And in all of this there is a total lack of artifactual evidence to back up the Ica stones. What concrete evidence could we expect to find if humans and dinosaurs had coexisted in Peru? You might examine burials for injuries caused by dinosaur teeth, or for artifacts made of dinosaur teeth or bones, you might even look for the remains of small pet dinosaurs in human burials, or human remains in the stomach area of excavated dinosaurs. You would find dinosaur bones and human burials in the same soil horizons during excavations that could be dated and demonstrated to have been laid down concurrently, and the truth is we find none of that. Indeed, I have been unable to find any reference to dinosaur remains found in that area at all.

Ica stone, man attacked by dinosaur.

http://www.paleo.cccedino/art.htm

In his book Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum, Kenneth Feder (2010) stated: “There is, I hope needless to say, not a shred of evidence for any of this positively crazy stuff. Although he has been very difficult to pin down and while he has recanted just about every version of the story he has told, Cabrera’s major source for the Ica Stones, Basilio Uschuya, has admitted to being not the discoverer of the stones but their fabricator. Basing the images on photographs, drawings, and illustrations in magazines and books, he engraves the images onto and through the dark surface of the stones using metal knives, chisels, and a dental drill. Then, to add a patina of age to the stones, he bakes them in donkey and cow dung, which seems poetically appropriate. The Ica Stones clearly are not the most sophisticated of the archaeological hoaxes discussed in this book, but they certainly rank up there as the most preposterous.” (Feder 2010:143)

Indeed, these are so obviously fakes I have to wonder why anyone with any education or common sense at all would espouse their case. The only conclusion I can reach is that their motivation is venality, material gain from selling books, and speaker’s honorariums from giving travel speeches and creationist symposia. To me, far from supporting the bible by their position, they are dishonoring it by associating it with these prevarications and falsehoods by the most vocal proponents. 

And remember, far from reinforcing the Creationist’s belief that humans have only existed for 6,000 years, the Ica stones convinced their first investigator, Cabrera, that we have existed for 405 million years. Let’s see you fit that into Bishop Usher’s dating scheme.

Now, if you take violent exception to my statements above and wish to discuss this in a rational manner, I will be happy to correspond about it. Those of you named Anonymous who wish to only insult and threaten me, please keep your frustration to yourselves, but to all others, conversation is an art. Let us practice it together.

REFERENCES:

Feder, Kenneth L.

2010    Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum, Greenwood, Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford.

http://www.neurosurgery.org/Cybermuseum/pre20th/treph/trephination.html

 

Wikipedia

DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART: NOT EVEN CLOSE! – A TRICERATOPS PETROGLYPH NEAR MONTROSE, COLORADO?

Dr. Don Patton pointing to the claimed petroglyph

of a triceratops near Montrose, CO, in this

photograph from www.bible.ca

Absolutely amazing, isn’t it? This is another example of the extremities that the Evolution-deniers and Young-Earthers will go to in order to prove that humans and dinosaurs lived together a few thousand years ago. Remember, that the goal is to prove the position that the bible says the earth is only 6,000 years old based upon 17^th century Bishop Usher’s calculation that “the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC” (Wikipedia). In order for that to be true humans and dinosaurs have to have coexisted for some period. Therefore, they study the rock art record for pictures that they can brand as dinosaurs. This picture (from www.bible.ca) shows a supposed triceratops petroglyph near Montrose, Colorado. In this picture the hand of Dr. Don Patton points to the image in question.

The anthropomorphs in this panel are Fremont in style which would date the panel to between over 2,000 years to approximately 1,250 years BPE. There is, of course, absolutely no way to prove that all the images were done back then, or that some were not added more recently. In fact, of the horns on this supposed triceratops one is obviously newer than the others; it is more heavily abraded, and brighter (less patinated) suggesting that it is considerably newer, and the longest one looks modified as well. So I have to assume that this so-called triceratops image has been modified, and it really wasn’t all that close to the original model anyway. It would seem that if people had indeed been living among dinosaurs when this image was created it should look a lot more like the real thing. In fact, to me, it looks much more like a Fremont portrayal of a dog which someone modified by adding another “horn” to two existing ears. In fact dog portrayals are relatively common in Fremont culture rock art.

By the way, this Dr. Don Patton has a background in geology, and his PhD is in Education. (http://www.bible.ca/tracks/ask-creationist.htm) Perhaps someone ought to have educated him about never touching the rock art. It messes up any attempts at scientific dating. But then, if the dating cannot be reliably established, it cannot be proven that this is not at all genuine. Perhaps there is a motive for his handling the surface of the rock like this after all.

Scientific illustration of a Triceratops, 

http://landbeforetime.wikia.com/wiki/Triceratops.

Now, according to conventional science the triceratops lived in the late Cretaceous period, 65 to 70 million years ago. Its range was Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, so this could have been within the area that they frequented, but they frequented it 65,000,000 years ago, not 6,000. (http://www.uwyo.edu/geomuseum/exhibits/triceratops.html)

This has obviously devolved into another situation where we have diametrically opposite belief systems and I doubt if the twain shall meet. Young earth believers will probably continue to see dinosaurs in rock art, and I, just as adamantly, will not see dinosaurs in rock art. How about you?

REFERENCES:

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/native-american-dino-art.htm

http://www.bible.ca/tracks/ask-creationist.htm

http://www.uwyo.edu/geomuseum/exhibits/triceratops.html

Wikipedia.

DINOSAURS IN ROCK ART? – THE BLACK DRAGON CANYON PTEROSAUR:

The (male?) pterosaur as imagined by evolution deniers.
Black Dragon Canyon, UT. Courtesy Phil Senter, 2012, 
http://palaeo-electronica.org.

To me one of the strangest sub-studies of the field of rock art consists of attempts of creationists and evolution deniers to find dinosaurs in rock art. Apparently this is to prove that humans and dinosaurs lived concurrently because that is the only way primitive people would have their examples to portray. As best I can tell this is the work of a group of creationists who ascribe to the theory that the bible says the earth is only 6,000 years old based upon 17^th century Bishop Usher’s calculation that “the first day of creation began at nightfall preceding Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC” (Wikipedia), so dinosaurs and humans have to have coexisted.

Whatever their motivation, there are a few tired examples that get trotted out over and over to supposedly prove that there are indeed portrayals of dinosaurs in rock art. Of these, perhaps the most ubiquitous example is the supposed pterosaur pictograph in Utah’s Black Dragon Canyon. In 2012 Phil Senter stated “An alleged pterosaur painting in Black Dragon Canyon, Utah, is actually not a single painting. Its "head" and "neck" are a painting of a person with outstretched arms. Its torso and limbs are those of a painting of a second person with outstretched arms, whose body continues into the "pterosaur's" "wing." The other "wing" is a painting of a horned serpent. The three paintings only appear connected because someone outlined the group with chalk.”

The original figures on the panel. Black Dragon Canyon, UT.

Courtesy Phil Senter, 2012, http://palaeo-electronica.org.

Senter traces the origin of the supposed pterosaur to a poorly done case of chalking the images and notes that it may have originally even been done as a practical joke. “It is also the origin of the Black Dragon “pterosaur”. Decades ago, someone chalked an outline that joined several separate images on the wall of Black Dragon Canyon in Emery County, Utah. Together within the chalk outline they bear a vague resemblance to an animal, although to call the composite image a pterosaur one has to consider the “wings” very badly deformed and very unlike each other.

The illusion of a single animal within the chalk outline inspired this unfortunate quote in a popular 1979 book on southwestern archaeology: "In the San Rafael Swell, there is a pictograph that looks very much like a pterosaur, a Cretaceous flying reptile" (Barnes and Pendleton, 1979, p. 201).” (Senter 2012:3)

A black and white comparison. From Warner and Warner, 1995.

I really want to compliment Phil Senter on having the courage to take this subject on. First off, not many scholars want to touch anything this controversial and it can actually hurt a career to get identified with a subject like this. Second, the evolution deniers are not going to be convinced by Senter’s logic, and telling them the factual truth. If anything they will attack him personally. Phil, we need more people with your courage!

NOTE: The photographs are courtesy of Phil Senter, Department of Biological Sciences, Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville, North Carolina. The black and white drawing of the panel was borrowed from the Warner and Warner (1995) paper cited below.

REFERENCES:

Barnes, F. A., and M. Pendleton

1979    Canyon Country Prehistoric Indians, Their Cultures, Ruins, Artifacts, and Rock Art, Wasatch, Salt Lake City.

Senter, Phil

2012    Rock Art “Dinosaurs”, More “Dinosaur” and “Pterosaur” Rock Art That Isn’t, Palaeontolical Association, July 2012. (http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2012-issue-2-articles/275-rock-art-dinosaurs).

Warner, J. S., and J. E. Warner

1995    Some Unique Horizontal Sunrise and Sunset Markers in Black Dragon Canyon, Utah Rock Art, 4:92 - 101