Chapter 35Discovery Upon Discovery

To really get what my uncle was going on about, and all his references to these super-smart guys, I gotta explain something important. It's about paleontology - the science of fossil life - and something that happened not long before we left.

On March twenty-eight, eighteen sixty-three, some navigators working for M. Boucher de Perthes were at the big quarries in Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville, France. They stumbled upon a human jawbone buried fourteen feet down. It was the first fossil of its kind ever found.

Near it were stone hatchets and carved flints, all covered in this crazy bright green tint from being underground so long.

The news of this wild find went viral - seriously, it spread all over France, England, and Germany. A bunch of big brains in science - including Milne-Edwards and De Quatrefages - totally took it seriously.

They proved the bone was legit and became, like, the biggest fans of the "jawbone question" in England.

Soon, top geologists from the UK - Falconer, Buck, Carpenter, and others - joined in. And in Germany, everyone was on board, especially my uncle, Professor Hardwigg, who was super hyped.

Basically, everyone agreed that this human fossil from the Quaternary period was the real deal, even the skeptics.

This whole system - or whatever you want to call it - had a serious enemy in M. Elie de Beaumont. This super-smart guy, a big deal in the science world, thought the soil from Moulin-Quignon wasn’t from the diluvium, but from a way older layer.

And like Cuvier, he definitely didn't think humans lived at the same time as the animals from the Quaternary epoch. My uncle, Professor Hardwigg - a total legend - and most geologists stuck to their guns.

They debated, argued, and eventually, M. Elie de Beaumont was pretty much left standing alone with his views.

We knew all about the back-and-forth, but we had no clue that since we left, things had shifted. Other jawbones - belonging to all sorts of people - had been found in the loose grey sands of caves in France, Switzerland, and Belgium.

Along with arms, tools, utensils, bones of kids, adults, and older folks. So, the idea of humans existing during the Quaternary period became stronger every day.

But that wasn’t even the half of it. New remains, found in Pliocene or Tertiary deposits, had let some of the smarter - or braver - scientists figure out that the human race was way older than anyone thought. These weren’t human bones, exactly.

They were things that people had definitely used: fossil animal leg and thigh bones, hollowed out and basically carved - showing clear signs of human work.

Through these wild, unexpected finds, humanity jumped way back in time. Seriously, we were older than mastodons! We were even around at the same time as the Elephas meridionalis - the southern elephant.

Paleontology told us we were talking over a hundred thousand years old, that's what the top geologists said about the Pliocene period. That's where we were, standing in this huge graveyard on the Hardwigg Ocean plains.

Now, you can imagine how stunned and stoked the Professor was when he walked about twenty yards and found himself staring at a human specimen from the Quaternary period!

It was a human skull, totally recognizable. Had this crazy soil, like the one at St. Michel Cemetery in Bordeaux, kept it safe for ages? That's what I was wondering, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Still, this head, with stretched, papery skin, perfect teeth, and tons of hair, was right there, like it was alive!

I was speechless, practically frozen with shock and awe looking at this crazy throwback from another time. My uncle, who usually talked a ton, was totally stunned. He was too overwhelmed to even speak. Eventually, we lifted the body that went with the skull. We stood it up.

To our hyped-up brains, it felt like it was staring at us with those empty eyes.

After a few minutes of silence, the Professor totally shut the man down. Human instincts just couldn't compete with his scientific excitement. Professor Hardwigg, caught up in the moment, totally spaced on where we were - our crazy journey, the insane cavern stretching out above us.

Seriously, he thought he was back at the Institution, lecturing his students. He put on his most professorial voice, waved his hand, and started:

"Alright, everyone, I’m stoked to introduce you to a guy from the Quaternary period. A lot of smart people have doubted he even existed, while others - probably even more respected - believe he was real."

If all the paleontologists were here, they’d be like, reverently touching him, finally admitting they were wrong. I know science needs to be careful with discoveries like this. I’m not naive; I’ve heard about all the Barnums and other fake-science guys who make a living off of this kind of thing.

"Of course, you know about the story of Ajax’s kneecaps, the supposed finding of Orestes’ body by the Spartans, and Asterius’s body - ten spans long, fifteen feet - which Pausanias wrote about."

"I’ve read everything about the Trapani skeleton, found way back in the fourteenth century, which a bunch of people thought was Polyphemus’s. And the story of that giant dug up near Palmyra in the sixteenth century. You guys know, like I do, about that famous analysis done near Lucerne in fifteen seventy-seven."

Doctor Felix Plater said those huge bones belonged to a giant, like, nineteen feet tall. I’m talking, I’ve devoured all of Cassanion’s writings, plus all those memoirs, pamphlets, speeches, and replies about the skeleton of Teutobochus, the Cimbri king who invaded Gaul.

"They found him in a gravel pit in Dauphine back in sixteen thirteen. In the 1700s, I would’ve totally agreed with Peter Campet - denying those preadamites Scheuchzer talked about. I’ve even held the writing called Gigans - "

My uncle was dealing with that thing he always got - you know, when he’d have trouble saying complicated words out loud. It wasn’t exactly a stutter, more like a weird hesitation.

"The writing called Gigans - " he repeated.

But he just couldn’t get it out. People would’ve lost it at the Institution if he’d messed up there. "Giganteo - "

No way! The word wouldn't come.

"Giganteology!" Professor Hardwigg finally blurted out between two frustrated growls.

Once we got past that, we were totally hyped -

"Yeah, guys, I’m super familiar with all this stuff. I know Cuvier and Blumenbach totally recognized those bones as mammoth remains from the Quaternary period. But after this - doubting it is basically insulting science. We’re seeing it! You can see it, touch it."

"It’s not just a skeleton, it’s a whole, perfect body, preserved with an anthropological purpose."

I didn’t even try to argue with that wild, unbelievable claim.

"If only I could soak this thing in sulphuric acid," my uncle went on, "I'd get rid of all the dirt and these fancy shells stuck all over it. But I don’t have that special stuff. Still, it’s gonna tell its own story, as it is."

He held up the fossil body, showing it off with serious skill. No showman could've been more energetic.

"If you look closely," my uncle continued, "you’ll see it’s only about six feet long, which isn’t even close to those stories about ancient giants. And it’s definitely Caucasian - it’s one of ours. The skull is a perfect oval, no crazy cheekbones or jaw sticking out."

It doesn't have that 'prognathism' thing that messes with the facial angle. Measure the angle yourselves, and you'll see it's exactly ninety degrees.

"But I’ll go even further with this investigation, and I’m willing to bet this human sample belongs to the Japhetic family, which spread from India all the way across Europe. No need to smirk, guys."

The facial angle is formed by two planes - one more or less vertical, going straight from the forehead to the incisors; the other, horizontal, passing through the ears and the lower nasal bone. Prognathism, in anthropology, means that jutting-out of the jaw that changes the facial angle.

Of course, nobody smirked. But the awesome Professor was so used to looking at people while he lectured, he thought everyone was laughing during his whole explanation.

"Yeah," he continued, sounding way more excited, "this is a fossil man, like, a contemporary of the mastodons. And the whole amphitheater is covered in their bones. But if you ask me how he ended up here, or how all these layers of earth ended up in this huge hole, I’m drawing a blank."

Seriously, if we rewind to the Quaternary epoch, we’d see massive shifts happening in the Earth’s crust. As the planet cooled, it cracked and crumbled, creating huge fissures and chasms.

I’m not making any definitive claims, but there's the guy, surrounded by his stuff - his hatchets and carved flints - totally from the Stone Age. The only logical thing is, like me, he checked out the center of the Earth, a traveling tourist, a science pioneer.

"No doubt he was ancient, one of the oldest humans ever."

The Professor stopped talking, and I gave him a huge round of applause. Honestly, my uncle was right. Even the smartest people would struggle to argue with his facts and logic.

Then, something else popped up. This fossil wasn’t the only one on this massive plain of bones - a cemetery from a world that’s gone. As we walked across the dusty ground, we found other bodies, and my uncle picked out the most amazing ones to convince even the biggest skeptics.

It was wild, seeing all those remains - generations and generations of people and animals - all mixed together in one giant cemetery. But a big question came up, and we were actually kind of scared to think about it.

Had these beings been buried way down deep by some crazy natural disaster? Or had they just been living here, underground, under this fake sky? Like, getting married, having families, and dying just like regular people?

Up until now, we'd only seen sea monsters, fish, and stuff like that moving around!

The question that kinda freaked us out was a good one. Were any of these abyss people hanging around the empty beaches of this wild sea at the center of the earth?

It really bothered me. If they were actually here, what would they think of us coming from above?