Farmington Man, concrete, text, 2009
Farmington Man, an Ancient Mystery
In 1934 in a sleepy town outside of Los Angeles, while clearing a sun-drenched hillside lot for the construction of a new home, an anonymous laborer stumbled across what would come to be one of the greatest, and least understood, archeological finds in history. The fascinating and terrifying discovery lay just beneath the surface. What, at first appeared to be stubborn rocks, slowly took a remarkable shape as the earth was removed. Imagine that worker’s reaction upon seeing for the first time the enormous fossilized teeth; the unmistakable form of a huge human jaw as it was released from its clay tomb.
Word spread quickly. International notoriety came to the previously obscure village of Farmington, California. Experts and gawkers alike came to see with their own eyes what became known as Farmington Jaw; the best physical evidence ever discovered of a pre-historic race of giant humanoids.
Even today there is great controversy surrounding the Jaw, and it’s implications as to the timeline of evolution on planet Earth. The fossil appears to form the complete lower jaw of a humanoid creature of massive stature, Farmington Man. Radiocarbon dating places the origin of the Jaw during the Cretaceous period at approximately 100 million years ago, though these results are much disputed. These findings place Farmington Man as predating other large mammals by 20 million years! Geological evidence suggests that the strata of rock and clay in which the jaw was imbedded would have been formed near the site of the great inland sea which one existed in present day Utah and Arizona. The millions of years of seismic upheaval, which created the mountains of the west, also moved the jaw to its present location.
Based on the jaw, it is calculated that Farmington Man was humanoid who towered over 90 feet tall. Evidence of wear on the teeth indicates that his or her diet included both plant and animal sources. It is possible that Farmington Man was a dinosaur eater. Unfortunately, until more fossil evidence is found, it is difficult to do more than speculate about the specifics of who Farmington Man was, and what his or her daily life was like.
Over the years Farmington Man has slipped from the headlines to become a mere footnote in only the most comprehensive surveys of archeology. More recent archeological scholarship has omitted any reference to the find whatsoever. Famed paleontologist Louis Leakey reputedly remarked, “Farmington Man, if indeed there was such a creature, raises so many questions about the origin of Homo sapiens that all of our work would be, simply, rubbish.” As this attitude took hold in the decades following WWII, all serious research into Farmington Man virtually ended.
Due to the fame, or infamy, that the Farmington Jaw brought to the little town, community leaders saw fit in 1946 to change it’s from Farmington to El Sereno. Today, even in El Sereno, most schoolchildren will have never heard of the Farmington Jaw, much less Farmington Man. Sadly, until more conclusive research is done the Farmington Jaw will remain a footnote, an anomaly in the tidy story of our planet’s history, and one of the greatest unexplained mysteries on Earth.
