Scattered Skeletons in our Closet (Digital)

Australian researcher Karen Mutton gives us the rundown on various hominids, skeletons, anomalous skulls and other “things” from our family tree, including hobbits, pygmies, giants and horned people.

None of the existing paradigms about humanity’s extreme past fits comfortably with physical anthropology researcher Karen Mutton. That applies to Darwinian evolution, creationism and its intelligent design offshoot, Hindu/Vedic creationism (as put forward by Dr Michael Cremo in Forbidden Archeology) and even the alien intervention theory proposed by, among others, author Lloyd Pye (custodian of the “Starchild skull”).

To start, Mutton overviews competing theories on human origins, clarifying the latest on classification issues, dating techniques and the Out of Africa and Out of Asia hypotheses as well as hoaxes and fakes on the part of both evolutionists and creationists. She says that her purpose is to highlight anomalous findings in the evolutionary paradigm as applied to human physical development. In the section “The Tangled Tree of Evolution”, Mutton discusses the controversies over Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Neanderthals as well as archaic species such as Homo sapiens idaltu. In support of her argument for a redefined paradigm, Mutton looks into out-of-place-and-time remains, e.g., anatomically modern humans found in ancient strata and evidence for Caucasians in prehistoric China.

To complete her “skeletons in the closet” coverage, Mutton examines strange skulls (among them the Starchild skull), ancient pygmies including the Flores “Hobbit”, and evidence, legends and hoaxes to do with giants. An engrossing analysis.