Chapter 40

Remember the Knapper?

The Asian Import who knapped the spear-point?

The point I found and started the whole mess?

We had nothing except Coprolites as evidence of his existence in the cave.

Edward Drinker Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker—his opposition to Darwin as well as his reputation for precocious brilliance was well established among fellow scientists. His chief rival was balding, bearded Othniel Marsh of Yale College, nine years older, slower, more methodical, and less established.WIKI

Although the presence of petrified intestinal waste had been noticed since the Seventeenth Century, the term for them was bezoar. Marsh is accredited with the lasting term ‘Coprolite.’ Fossilized shit ... just like professor Cope. (Professor LB Davis; Discussions at several archaeological sites.)

Our mechanic/craftsman was un-discovered until the last boulder was removed from the breakdown.

He wasn’t very tall ... but facial reconstruction pointed the way, Asian immigrant ... the condition of his hands? possible sailor. His tool-kit was highly reminiscent of modern knapping tool-kits. The collection of chert chunks in his carry-sack bespoke variety and possible trade. Red and black mottled obsidian from Oregon, black obsidian from the Yellowstone Caldera, chert nodules from limestone, collected where-ever and the pretties.

Stones of various colors, a worked blue stone buffalo, incised Smilodon teeth and drilled cowrie shells. The shells, unfinished, suggested a mate.

The breakdown removal produced a long hollow tube covered in gray bedrock trending west north west. The west end stopped just east of the Austin Discovery School. The implementation of a two track down to Trevino park had vibrated the collapse of the tunnel.

The sand floor was uniform enough in color, size and composition to suggest a heavy fresh water flow for several hundred years. Without a Geology wizard to conduct a seance, cast the bones or read the tea-leaves ... it’s all just guesswork. I’d like to say my opinion is as valid as the next guy ... but he doesn’t know either.

Since Bedrock is made up of igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic rock, a multitude of cataclysmic, disastrous, catastrophic, calamitous, tragic, devastating events occurring over time most likely over-laid the shallow seas with the connecting limestone reef covered by the increasing weight of layers of compressed stone. Then came the first of the ice ages, scraping the deposits, leaving a scoured surface. Huge floods of melt water corroded the coral ... more volcanic activity covered the locality.

We’re talking millions, if not billions, of years of planet building. Surface strikes, glances ... collection, removal, if one can imagine it ... it likely happened.

A bedrock deposit that occurs at Earth’s surface is called an outcrop. The bedrock that make up the cliffs bespeaks a multitude of millions of rotation events. This did not happen over night.

The coral bridge between two shallow seas ... the bedrock covering ... the freshwater washing of the coral. Millions of years in the making.

UhOH ... I know too much ... I rattled on ... formed opinions ... well ... shit! I’m an anthropologist ... damn it all. Wasn’t planning on that.

When we found the body ... we reported it.

Then we had the Alphabet Soup trying to pin it on us ... and some of those guys live in their own little world. And ... of course they wanted to see the boulders ... yup.

It made absolutely no difference that forensic science determined that the body had been dead almost fifteen thousand five hundred years.

“I don’t care what the judge said,” said the LEO, “This isn’t over.”