There is a widespread belief that our understanding of history is somehow flawed and that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of how historical events transpired. Among the most prevalent manifestations of this is the problem of unusual archaeological anomalies and “impossible fossils,” which are fossilized remains preserved in an extremely old stone that have no reason to be in that location.
Various kinds of such finds have been reported previously; but, one that has received little attention is the discovery of a complete human skeleton in a rock that is tens of millions of years old and believed to be that of a female human being.
The English navy captured the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe from the French in 1810, and a large amount of booty was seized and shipped back to England. There were numerous items in this collection, one of which was a large slab of stone kept by the French and which contained the unusual feature of a human skeleton encased within the rock, which had been pulled from a much larger slab on the north-eastern coast that measured more than one mile in length.
In fact, the remains were nearly complete, with only the head and feet missing. They appeared to have belonged to a modern woman, who would have measured approximately 5.2 feet tall in real life.
There were some questions about how this skeleton could have made its way into what was described as hard, impenetrable rock estimated as being from possibly the Miocene age, around 25 million years old, a time period during which many of you may already be aware that there were no modern human beings on the planet. And so would begin the strange and contentious tale of the “Guadeloupe Woman.”
Admiral Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, the governor of the island at the time, had the mysterious skeleton and its surrounding rock grave transported to the British Museum in 1813, where it would be further examined and discovered that the skeleton was indeed from a modern woman and that the bones themselves had not been fossilized.
The stone was also discovered to be a form of sandstone with an unknown age; nevertheless, the stone surrounding it was estimated to be so old that it was instantly recognized by creationists in the late nineteenth century as evidence of the Biblical Genesis Flood.
As an anomaly, the bizarre skeleton was displayed in the museum until it was moved to the Natural History Museum in 1881, where it remained on display, evoking awe and wonder from visitors, especially when Darwin’s Theory of Evolution became popular, as it was perceived by some to be in direct opposition to Darwin’s ideas. The Guadeloupe Woman remained on display until 1967 when it was moved to the museum’s storerooms, where it continues to elicit debate to this day.
The skeleton is obviously of interest to creationists, as it is frequently cited as evidence that the world is younger than evolution claims, and in this particular case, the skeleton has long been presented as evidence of the biblical flood of Noah’s Ark fame.
If not for modern humans, how might old limestone from the Miocene Era get contaminated with present human remains? The creationists, of course, adore this type of stuff because it gives them the opportunity to seize on some sort of evidence that people did, in fact, live side by side with dinosaurs.
Alternatively, there are wild theories that this is evidence for the existence of time travel, with these explorers unintentionally leaving behind evidence of their passage while traveling through the recesses of ancient history and prehistory, and there is even the possibility that ancient aliens are responsible for such discoveries.
Some creationists have even speculated that the museum purposely removed the skeleton from exhibit in order to conceal the truth and promote their evolutionist agenda, and this has sparked conspiracy theories in some quarters.
While it is exciting to think that our natural history has been so spectacularly misunderstood up to this point, it appears more likely that most of this is either hoaxed evidence or misinterpretation of natural phenomena, and there has been much done to disprove these creationist conclusions in the past.
Michael Ruark 