Other specimens from Ed Conrad

During his visit to Temple University, Ed Conrad also showed me some of his other presumptive "fossils of Carboniferous humans". Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of these specimens, since our very specific goal was to examine microscopic thin sections. Some of these specimens can be seen on Ed Conrad's web page, however. Here I will simply have to describe what I saw.

A fragment of the shaft of a human tibia. This is specimen EC96-001, which is much more thoroughly described on Andrew MacRae's page. Basically, this is a rough, tapered cylinder with broken ends. There are no diagnostic anatomical features present on it, but from the size I would have guessed it might have been a portion of the shaft of a femur, although it seemed a little too robust even for that. Conrad has claimed, however, that the late Dr. Krogman (a pathologist, I believe) identified this specimen as part of a human tibia. How the late Dr. Krogman could have made this determination is unclear; however, since I have only handled 10 or 15 human tibias in my life, I'll concede that maybe he knew something I don't. I think, however, that Ed Conrad must be much more specific in explaining how this featureless cylinder could be so decisively determined to be a specific bone.

A human cranium. This was a very interesting piece of rock. It is roughly bowl-shaped, about the size of a human cranium, and Ed does have a photograph of it on his web page. However, it was also an inch or two thick, assymetrical, and there were odd, thick infoldings in the interior. Ed claims that most of the thickness is due to mineral accumulations, and the bone itself is completely buried under thick layers of foreign mineral. Again, all the anatomically significant diagnostic features are missing, in this case because they are imbedded in rock rather than having broken off.

A fragment of a human jaw. This was the least interesting of Ed's specimens. He purports that it is a piece of jaw, the right-angled corner in back. It has been broken so the condyle is missing, as well as the tooth-bearing anterior part. It is far too large and thick to be human. All it really looks like is a flattened rock with a squared off corner. Ed has several examples of these kinds of unimposing specimens on his web page.

The anterior end of a human jaw, with two "teeth" and a fossilized tongue-tip. This was a complex piece. It was shaped like a broad "U", and on "top" were a couple of blob-like lumps. Ed claimed this was the broken off chin of an antediluvian human. Again, however, it was far too large and thick to be human. The two "teeth" were squat, marshmallow shaped blobs assymetrically placed on a thick ridge along the back of the "jaw"; if these were teeth, then antediluvian man not only had very poor dental care, but he also had a pair of gigantic molars where his incisors ought to be. There was a third blob that was smoother and had been fractured at the "back"...according to Ed, this was a piece of fossilized tongue-tip. Yeah, right.

A fossilized gall bladder. Finally, Ed showed me a smooth, tear-drop shaped stone about the size of the ball of my thumb, which had a tapered stem that ended in a break. He had me try to guess what it was, and I will admit to being totally stumped. Finally, the secret was revealed -- it was a human gall bladder. As definitive proof, he had had it X-rayed, and there is a round discontinuity present inside this fossil: a gall stone.

My general opinion is that all of these pieces have shapes that are vaguely suggestive of bones or other organs, and anyone with any imagination at all can see these anatomical features in the rocks, in the same way that you can find similar features in cloud formations. Some, like his "jaw with teeth and tongue-tip", also require a blind ignorance of anatomy. All have only a coincidental correspondence with real organs. In every case, the details that would be required to make a convincing correspondence are either missing or obscured in mineral encrustations. Ed has also put no rational thought into giving us a convincing mechanism for the odd pattern of fossilization we are seeing: the specimens have experienced such severe trauma that they are all broken, yet isolated gall bladders could somehow be preserved. The shattered pieces have an odd distribution, too. The ends of all the long bones are broken off and lost, the jaws are missing their joints and teeth, and certain fragments are selectively absent, such as teeth and vertebrae. It is very suspicious that the only specimens found are those with the simplest possible geometry, which leave open the possibility of ambiguous interpretation.