Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization

by Graham Hancock

  Anthony Frendo, Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Malta, initially concluded that the nitrogen results published in the 1964 Report effectively demolished any possibility that Palaeolithic humans had lived on Malta.76 But in what amounts to an extraordinary endorsement from the heart of the establishment, Frendo concedes that Mifsud’s research has now shown those nitrogen results to have been ‘tampered with’ and the fluorine and uranium oxide tests suppressed so as to create a false Neolithic chronology for the human teeth from Ghar Dalam:77 ‘This means that early man must have come to the Maltese islands in pre-Neolithic times.’78

  How have other archaeologists reacted to Anton Mifsud’s accusation of forgery and its seismic implications for the orthodox paradigm of the Neolithic origins of Maltese civilization? On the latter point there has simply been no reaction. Maltese prehistoric archaeology continues on its Neolithic way, seemingly untroubled. On the former point, like Frendo, John Samut Tagliaferro of Malta’s Museum of Archaeology agrees that the final figure now to be seen in the Green Book ‘of 1.85 per cent of nitrogen content for the molar Gh.D/2 (Despott’s molar, coded by the Natural History Museum as Ma.2] was superimposed on the original result, namely that of 0.8 per cent’.79

  Unlike Frendo, however, Tagliaferro says he sees nothing sinister in the superimposition. He argues that all the samples from Malta were subjected to more than one nitrogen assay at the Natural History Musuem – and these sometimes produced different results, quite properly leading to ‘adjustment’, after the second test, of the figures yielded by the first. In the case of Despott’s molar the original figure had been written as ‘.8 per cent’ (with no zero preceding the decimal point). The fact that this figure was then overwritten so that it would read ‘1.85 per cent’ could be easily explained as the result of such an ‘adjustment’ after retesting.80

  I had already seen ample evidence that the chemical test results had been misrepresented and so was prepared to consider the possibility of forgery. But I had also seen enough to convince me that the chemical tests were capable in themselves of producing inconsistent and ambiguous results. I was therefore not prepared to accept Mifsud’s allegation without following it up and offering the Museum a chance to rebut it. I also wanted to see the Green Book for myself and, with the help of Channel 4 and permission from the Museum, get its data – which were obviously controversial even if one disregarded the forgery allegation – on film.

  Tackling the Natural History Museum (1): controlled access

  Our contacts with the Museum unfolded over a period of several months and were handled primarily by my research assistant Sharif Sakr with occasional back-up when needed from Roy Ackerman, Head of Programmes at Diverse Productions (the company making my TV series for Channel 4). Here is the transcript of Sharif’s opening (11 July 2001) telephone conversation with an official (name withheld) who deals with access to records at the Museum’s Palaeontology Department:

  Sharif: Hi, my name is Sharif Sakr. I just spoke to a colleague of yours in the archives department, and she recommended I speak to you. I’m calling from Diverse Production, a TV company in London, and we’re making a documentary that’s going to involve some Maltese prehistoric archaeology, and as part of the research and filming, I’d like to know if it’s possible for me to get access to this thing called the ‘Green Book’, which contains records of bone analyses done between 1952 and, I guess, the late 1960s, on some Maltese teeth.

  Official: I don’t know if it’s possible or not.

  Sharif: You don’t know if it’s possible or not?

  Official: I don’t know if it’s possible, because it relates, it has information about human remains, and that would be available really only to academics – people who are doing academic research, such as, we’ve had people from Malta do research on that in here …

  Sharif: Really? People have already come to look at the stuff I’ve talked about?

  Official: Yeah, that’s right, Dr Anton Mifsud has looked at that book, but he was an academic. But merely for the sake of filming – you know, what’s the point? What’s the use of that?

  Sharif: You know, to get the actual numbers on camera, if possible.

  Official: Erm … No … I think that will not be possible, basically, without permission from a much higher level than me, basically.

  Sharif: Well, who would that be?

  Official: Well, a letter from your head of department or head of, whatever you are, to Dr Louise Humphrey here, who deals with access to human remains.

  Sharif: Do you have any contact details for her?

  Official: Yes, Dr Louise Humphrey, at the address of this museum, which is the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW75BD.

  Sharif: OK, thank you. What about, well, cameramen aside, what about the possibility of me, you know an individual without any cameras or anything, coming in to browse through this book?

  Official: Good heavens, no! No documentation relating to human remains is available for browsing by non-academics. I mean you’re not doing academic research, so you don’t get to see the documentation, it’s as simple as that.

  Sharif: OK, that’s quite clear.

  Official: That’s basically the rule that we’re following now, in relation to the anthropology collection.

  Sharif: And that rule exists for reasons of preservation or ethics?

  Official: For reasons of ethics, I guess, more than anything else.

  Sharif: What if I said that the samples I wanted to see weren’t solely human – in fact a number of them were hippopotamus bone …

  Official: Yes, but it’s documentation within the anthropology section. So it gets regarded as … er … and also it might be unpublished, even if it’s fifty years old, I’m not sure if the information’s been published or not. If it’s been published, then why would you want to see the original notebooks where the results are recorded?

  Sharif: Well I can answer that, because this man, I’ve never met him, but Anton Mifsud is claiming that in fact the results have been ignored, i.e., not published, misrepresented when they were mentioned, and in fact he’s even claiming that there was some tampering going on, such that the only real place where you’re going to find these results in their original form from 1952 is in the Green Book, and that’s why it’s so important to see that book, rather than secondary evidence, for example in the National Museum in Malta.

  Official: Another thing that comes to mind is that, er, if the reputation of the Museum is at stake, then probably the director of science would have to look at this first, you know …

  Sharif: Well, it’s not at stake – your museum is supposed to have the untampered-with evidence …

  Official: It’s just that you may misrepresent whatever we have, and that would mean that we get embroiled in all kinds of funny tests going on, about whether it’s one pen or three pens or five pens on a piece of paper, whether it was written in 1950 or 1960 or 1970, which would go on and on for months and weeks and there’d be no end to it …

  Sharif: I was wondering … you talk as if you’ve had experience of Anton Mifsud …

  Official: Oh, I do …

  Sharif: Was he annoying, was he dishonest?

  Official: No, he was very pleasant, without a doubt. You know he was … But perhaps what I would say is that erm, between, since then the whole climate in relation to human remains has changed …

  Sharif: So it’s controlled access now …

  Official: It’s controlled access. The ethics of human remains.

  Tackling the Natural History Museum (2): one of our pages is missing

  As the official suggested, Sharif made contact with Dr Louise Humphrey concerning our request to film the relevant page in the Green Book containing the altered nitrogen figure for Despott’s molar (code number Ma.2). On 26 October 2001, Dr Humphrey presented us with an astonishing piece of news. We would not be able to film the page containing this test result – or at any rate not at the Natural Histo
ry Museum – because it was ‘missing’.

  Ironically, the only place in the world where a true copy of it could now be found was in Anton Mifsud’s 1997 Dossier Malta where he had reproduced his photographs from the Green Book. Perhaps, Dr Humphrey suggested, we would like to film his photographs instead? While we were at it, she added, could we please ask Dr Mifsud to send a photograph to her as well so that she could use it to replace the missing page in the file?

  It was in this e-mail that Dr Humphrey offered the Museum’s rebuttal to Mifsud’s allegation of forgery. Humphrey had managed to find the original laboratory reports from which the results had been taken and entered into the Green Book. These lab records contained a reading of 1.85 per cent for Ma.2, effectively proving Tagliaferro’s suggestion that this later result was genuine and a proper substitute for the original figure of 0.8 per cent.

  From: Louise Humphrey

  To: Sharif Sakr

  Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:43 PM

  Subject: Green Book

  Dear Mr Sakr

  Thank you for your e-mail of 18 October. The page listing results for Ma.1-Ma.7 in the Green Book is missing and I have not been able to find any evidence for where it might be. We know that the page was still present in 1995 since Dr Mifsud states in the acknowledgements of his book that he photographed the page when he visited this Museum on 10 August 1995. Fortunately, Dr Mifsud does have photographs and, according to his acknowledgements, photocopies of the relevant page of the Green Book. It would therefore be possible for you to film these copies for your programme. I would also be grateful if you could ask Dr Mifsud to send me a copy of his photographs, photocopies or both to replace the missing original page in our files.

  Some of the results in the Green Book were compiled from other primary sources, for example, correspondence between Museum staff and staff in the laboratories where the analyses were conducted or forms completed during the process of analyses conducted here. I have not found primary records to back up all of the results summarized in the Green Book, and it is possible that some analysis results were entered directly into the Green Book. The departmental archives include two files of correspondence between Dr Oakley and staff at Microanalytical Laboratory in Oxford where nitrogen determinations were carried out, including letters detailing the results for all of the samples from Malta. For example, one letter, dated 17 June 1955, gives the analytical result for Ma.2 (1.85% N). Dr Mifsud’s claim (e.g., page 96 of his book) that Dr Oakley deliberately and fraudulently altered this result is evidently erroneous. The departmental archives also include forms completed during the process of uranium analyses, including those for several Maltese samples. The analysis of Ma.2 was carried out on 23 February 1967 and yielded a result of 13 +/- 1 [parts per million].

  I should reiterate that each of the analytical techniques used to investigate the samples from Malta between 1952 and 1969 can yield anomalous or ambiguous results … Dr Oakley had many years experience working with these techniques and was probably better qualified than anybody to interpret the results and identify anomalies … Ma.6 is a very clear example of an anomalous result. The nitrogen reading is nil, indicating that the tooth had been buried for long enough for all the organic materials to be lost. Taken in isolation this result could suggest an early (e.g., Pleistocene) date, yet the radiocarbon date for this tooth is 4130 +/- 45 (see Archaeometry 41: 421–431).

  [NB Ma.6 is not one of the contested Ghar Dalam teeth but one of the Hypogeum teeth also assayed by Oakley. Mifsud’s theory does not dispute but in fact predicts the dating to the Neolithic of the Hypogeum teeth, which he believes to have been swept into the underground structure from surface-level Neolithic graveyards by the agency of a flood -see chapters 16 and 17.]

  Fluorine, uranium and nitrogen tests have fallen into disuse because more reliable and accurate dating techniques are now available. If the aim of your programme is to provide accurate scientific information, it would not be appropriate to rely on unpublished information using out-of-date techniques taken from historical archives. Results that are unpublished have not been submitted to peer review and do not carry the same weight scientifically as those that have been scrutinized by independent reviewers. I understand from your e-mail that it may not be possible to remove samples from the Maltese taurodont teeth for radiocarbon dating. Nevertheless, I think it is important to point out that the dating of the human teeth is insecure without this additional evidence. Kind regards, Louise Humphrey

  Question-marks persist

  Humphrey’s e-mail helps to answer some questions, but leaves others unanswered and raises yet more.

  On the forgery issue, Mifsud’s allegation as it stands is clearly weakened by the proof that 1.85 per cent is a genuine test result. But does this necessarily mean that 0.8 per cent, written in the original layer of ink, wasn’t also a genuine result? 0.8 per cent would make much more sense given the results of the fluorine and uranium oxide tests. Dr Louise Humphrey made it clear to us in a later e-mail that if there was a lab report containing a nitrogen result of 0.8 per cent for Ma.2, then she probably – but not definitely – would have found it. But it should also be pointed out that Anton Mifsud – who was kept informed of our correspondence with the Natural History Museum – stands by his allegation and expects to publish further evidence to support it in 2003. He intends to prove that whereas Ma.2 was tested for fluorine in 1952, no sample was taken from this tooth for later nitrogen testing, such that the 1.85 per cent reading actually corresponds to a different tooth that was substituted by someone – and Mifsud intends to show who – outside the Natural History Museum. It was knowledge of this dishonest switch, thinks Mifsud, that led an honest and concerned Kenneth Oakley to resubmit the original tooth for uranium oxide testing in 1968.

  Forgery allegations aside, it is bizarre, and indeed rather disquieting, that the extremely important and controversial page from the Green Book containing results which were misrepresented by scholars should have been present in 1995 and should have gone ‘missing’ subsequently – without any trace or explanation, as Dr Humphrey admits. For whereas one might expect items of primary evidence to ‘disappear’ during a mobster trial, it seems inappropriate for the same sort of thing to happen in an archaeological dispute. Moreover, staff at the Museum are obviously well informed about the very serious allegations made in Dossier Malta in 1997. It therefore seems contrary to human nature that they would not at that time have opened up the Green Book to have a look at the page Mifsud claimed had been misrepresented and ‘corrupted’. If so, does it not follow either that the page was still present in the Green Book in 1997 or – if it was found to be gone then – that no report was made of its disappearance at the time?

  But the biggest question to arise from all of this concerns the chemical tests themselves. If Oakley’s chemical tests on the Ghar Dalam teeth are really as obsolete and insecure as Dr Humphrey claims, why were they still being used in 2000 to contradict the stratigraphic context of the teeth and demonstrate that they are Neolithic? And if the tests aren’t as useless as Dr Humphrey claims, can we really accept her assertion that only the late Kenneth Oakley was sufficiently versed in his own esoteric techniques to be able to interpret their results? If the orthodox position rests on nothing more than a missing page of numbers that have been subject to highly misrepresentative publication and deeply unfathomable interpretation, then does this position deserve to be considered ‘scientific’?

  An interpretation with feet of clay

  Let me reiterate that the real issue in this saga is not the allegation of forgery but the interpretation that has consistently been put by archaeologists on the whole suite of results from Kenneth Oakley’s chemical tests. Proponents of the ‘Neolithic-first’ theory of Maltese prehistory have claimed the results prove the human teeth from the Cervus Layer of Ghar Dalam to have been Neolithic, and thus several thousand years younger than the Cervus Layer and probably introduced by intrusive burial. This is the interpretation
that has entered the history books and become orthodox. Yet we now know that it is based on disputed, ambiguous and internally contradictory evidence – which may be highly suggestive but which is frankly nowhere near good enough to settle such an important matter. Worse still, when we look closely at the FUN test results, as Mifsud has enabled us to do by publishing the full set of elusive figures from the Green Book, we find that what they are highly suggestive of – according to the standard rules of interpretation – is not the Neolithic date for the Ghar Dalam teeth claimed by the National Museum of Malta. Instead, the predominant overall pattern of high fluorine, high uranium and low nitrogen that these teeth manifest is, as reported earlier in this chapter, highly suggestive of a date in the Palaeolithic.81 It becomes legitimate, therefore, to wonder why the ‘Neolithic-first’ hypothesis for Malta continues to be promulgated at all.

  Sharif came at the problem in a roundabout way in a recorded telephone interview with Louise Humphrey:82