The Mysterious Origins of Man
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from March 1996.
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Researchers look for new answers to old questions in The Mysterious Origins of Man, a one-hour special premiering Sunday, Feb. 25, on NBC.
Charlton Heston is host of the telecast, which comes from the Emmy-winning producers of Mystery of the Sphinx and challenges conventional, accepted beliefs about prehistoric man.
Among other theories posited during the hour is the possibility man may have made the "climb" from Stone Age to civilization more than once, and modern man is simply the latest in this cycle. More startling is testimony from researchers who claim evidence supporting this and other unorthodox notions is being systematically suppressed by the scientific establishment.
One woman even states her career was short-circuited after she steadfastly insisted on revealing evidence that she says proves the early man known as "Homo erectus" may be far older than has been widely accepted by Charles Darwin and the mainstream research community.
Some of the supposed insights featured during Mysterious Origins require vast leaps of faith. The discovery of fossilized manlike footprints next to those of what appear to be a dinosaur is not hard evidence humans and dinosaurs co-existed, as the program hints.
Nor does an ancient map that appears to designate the continent of Antarctica offer proof of a highly advanced society during prehistoric times.
Still, the special does raise the point that the "missing link" that forms the backbone of Darwin's theory that man and ape shared a common ancestor has yet to be found.
