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Palaeoanthropology and archaeology are fascinating, vibrant and multi-disciplinary areas of research. There is everything from isotopic laboratory work to down-and-dirty hands-on excavation. The discipline has grown tremendously since the time of Darwin and continues to yield new important revelations with each passing year. It is disturbing, therefore, when individuals and organisations seek to undermine the very basis of the fossil record in a non-scientific and arbitrary manner, based upon their personal religious beliefs. Equally disturbing is the record sales encountered by such books. Recently a new variant of creationism has arisen to challenge evolution: Hindu creationism as advanced by its most prominent proponents Michael Cremo and Richard Thompson, who are the authors of one of the most prominent anti-palaeoanthropological works in recent years is "Forbidden Archeology", and its shortened version "The Hidden History of the Human Race". "Forbidden Archeology" and "The Hidden History of the Human Race", since 1993, grossed sales figures of 200 000 – 300 000 and their influence around the world is immense.
Cremo, whose initiated name is Drutakarma Dasa, has presented his work to the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London on 3 May 2000. Futhermore, a high school in Bangalore, India selected Forbidden Archeology as a text for its academic curricula in 2000. Hare Krishna fundamentalists are also promoting the results of a poll, published on 11 March 2000 and reported by the New York Times, conducted in the United States which shows support for the teaching of creationism in American schools.In 2001 the head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Niagra, Dr. Dennis Bonnette, authored a creationist book titled "Origin of the Human Species". The paleoanthropology chapter was based on and drawn from "Forbidden Archeology" and correspondences with Cremo. Dr Bonnette's book has been endorsed by the Christian Intelligent Design creationist Michael Behe.
"The Antiquity of Man: Artifactual, Fossil and Gene records Explored" explores the basic tenets that run through all fundamentalist writings. It is the only published work to provide an in-depth critique of Cremo and Thompson's work, and to examine creationism from the perspective of palaeoanthropology and archaeology: the application of genetics, our relationship with archaic hominins and chimpanzees, and the origins of modern human behaviour. While the book primarily addresses Cremo & Thompson's work, it also provides an overview of the current state of palaeonthropological and archaeological research. The range is broad and well documented, from explanations of how homeobox genes operate and their applicability to hominin fossils, to demonstrating our relationship with chimpanzees through genetics and anatomy, and to outlining the origins of modern human behaviour.
"The Antiquity of Man" is comprised of four chapters: