History or Mystery
KRMA-TV, Denver

Introduction

Scott Monahan, moderator: Hello again. Thank you for staying with us for this important companion program to "History on the Rocks". In a few moments we will begin an unrehearsed debate recorded in Denver on December 17th, 1985. Our debate, titled "History or Mystery" focuses on the sharp polarities that exist between epigraphers and archaeologists. New questions about America's ancient past were raised a decade ago with the publication of "America B.C." You heard extensively from its author, Dr. Barry Fell, in the documentary. A new book, "Ancient Celtic America", will soon be out, detailing the sites you saw in "History on the Rocks" and even newer discoveries made since the filming. The authors make up one side in our debate. Phil Leonard is president of the Western Epigraphic Society. He is a Salt Lake City stock broker with an extensive background in the bio-medical field. Bill McGlone is the society archivist. He's a materials engineering consultant from Albuquerque. Representing the local archaeological community is rock art specialist Sally Cole of Grand Junction. She is Executive Secretary of the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists. Joining her is John Gooding, the supervising archaeologist for the Colorado Department of Highways. He also serves as a research associate at the University of Colorado museum in his hometown of Boulder. Except for the deletion of one guest's reference to a specific site, the debate you are about to hear is unedited, just the way it happened. Now, my first question to Mr. Gooding.

December 17, 1985, Studio Discussion

Scott Monahan: Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that most American archaeologists, including yourself, have pretty much rejected the theories set forth by Barry Fell in his book ten years ago "America B.C." What evidence, what in the newer, what, what in the newer evidence have you seen that would make you change your mind or have you changed your mind about any of it?

John Gooding: No, I don't believe I have changed my mind with regard to anything that Mr. Fell may have written. I would like to comment briefly, though, on the program you have just witnessed. I would like to ask you what your journalistic intent is in producing a very cleanly, tightly knit program that uses the use of graphic aids, as you can see on this monitor here that do not interpret the entire piece of rock art. I would like to ask you why it is that this program has a notable lack of variable interpretations which are entirely possible in all of that work. I would like for you to comment on the implicit racism that is brought forward in this program by implying that Europeans were responsible for all of this work. And I'd just briefly like to know why it is you have perpetrated this fabrication on the viewing public of Denver.

Scott Monahan: Well, I found it interesting. And I found the people who were involved in this project serious about the work. They're not a bunch of kooks as they've been characterized as by some people in the past. And the reason I think we're having this discussion is to clear the air on what other people say about these interpretations. As far as the racist comment, you're going to have to ask Bill and Phil. I would like you to clarify why you feel this is racist, though.

John Gooding: Oh, quite simply. The implication is that all of the markings on caves in southeastern Colorado were not made by native Americans.

Sally Cole: Or if they were, they were to duplicate things that were made by Europeans or North Africans in an attempt to attract these North Africans. I think there's that quote exactly is in there, maybe not exactly that language. But, basically, I think we have to look at the history of the United States at least from the time the Pilgrims came here. There has always been the assumption made, over and over and over again and this is just a new phase in that, that everything that's a visible accomplishment of the American Indian is somehow attributable to Western Civilization. Thomas Jefferson excavated his first, the first mound excavation in the United States in order to prove or disprove an American Indian manufacture. And that has been going on forever. We had it with all the mounds. We has the mounds all the way through the Midwest. We've had rock art attributed to Europeans forever. And the reason is, I mean we're in a peculiar situation here. We, as Euro-Americans, are not looking at our own roots when we look into the pre-history of the Americas, at least as far as all the archaeological evidence would tell us.

Scott Monahan: So let me get this clear, Sally. Are you saying that what Bill and Phil have done and the other members of the Epigraphic Society have done is not science?

Sally Cole: I'm saying that science merely is a way of testing theories. And, I'm saying you have to consider the data. Archaeology, serious archaeology in the Americas, North and South, because we're talking this whole continent of the Americas, has been going on here for a good hundred years, the best archaeology in the last fifty. There is an enormous amount of data available, just an enormous amoung of data available. Linguistically, physically, materially, it's all there. And I'm saying that in order to be scientific with any theory you can't throw that out and just charge ahead with something else. That's what I'm saying.

John Gooding: I think they have stepped out of the bounds, outside of the bounds, of reasonable scholarship.

Sally Cole: And, that's, I think, that's the way we feel is that all this data's here. And you have to consider it. You have to look and say, do these grooves in southeastern Colorado fit with what we know from data, real hard, accumulated archaeological data, properly excavated, properly dated. We have ethnographic data of the plains of all places, because we have ethnographic data from Mallery's work at the turn of the century which is incredible on the Plains Indian myths and rituals which are enormously rich and tie in right out of their own words on hide paintings and notches in sticks about visionquest to rocks, secret spots, mountaintops, all of these things, that it was the whole concept of the individual in the plains and what he did. Rock art, the iconography of that, is tied in with they made notches in rocks in order to mark time spent or experiences felt. We have puberty rites. And all of this fits. I mean I can take the sites and they fit.

Scott Monahan: Isn't it interesting, though, that these marks seem to translate into an old European alphabet?

Sally Cole: Well, only some of them. And, you're talking about, like in some of the words here, they're saying, "This is a B and this is an L." And then they're just putting in, you know, they were just saying, "It's Bel". It could be, who knows what, belt. I mean, that's what I'm trying to say is that we are talking about... I'm not a linguist. I want to point that out very quickly because I'm an archaeologist and we deal with material culture. I do use the skills of linguistics when I'm trying to analyze rock art because that's part of the record, if you will. But, I think it's really important to recognize that you can, if you're talking about abstract symbols, you can call them anything. That's how languages got started. Until you abstract it enough, then you define what it means and then you pass that knowledge around. And that's what I'm trying to say. If it's abstract enough you can read anything into anything without even being a fraud or anything. You can see things. It's like the ship on the rock that Bill McGlone talks about. I see what he's talking about when he described it. I've seen the Swedish markings on the rock. But, there's a lot of abstract designs. That particular motif seems to be identified with the other, I think that's the Hicklin Springs site, and there's lots of stuff there that's in, what we call, the Great Basin abstract style. And, a lot of it could be wheels. I mean you could have all kinds of things represented here.

Scott Monahan: John, you're convinced, then, that there is no possible way this could be ogam?

John Gooding: I can state from several authorities that got involved in this controversy which was basically settled by the Office of the State Archaeologist, State Historical Society, in 1977. At that time there were certain, quote-unquote, ogam marks found at a site called Hackberry Spring, which is now on the National Register. And, as a result of certain misguided efforts by some people that drew Mr. Fell and his cult following into this field, certain letters went out trying to resolve the issue, to the University of Edinburgh, the Department of Celtic, and to Harvard University. And, I would like to quote freely from some of this. Dr. Calvin Watkins, who is in the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University, his opening statement is, "I have examined the photographs of Colorado petroglyphs at 5LA115 which you sent me on September 1. I can state categorically that they are not a variant of ogam, a la Barry Fell, as you put it in your letter." Then he goes on, in some detail, explaining what real ogam looks like. Interestingly, true ogam is written vertically, not horizontally, only horizontally in very, very rare cases. I need to state further that Dr. Glenn Isaac from Cambridge University reviewed various works of this cult following and in one of his concluding paragraphs, he says, and I quote, "There are no authentic ogam inscriptions outside of the British Isles. The megalith builders of western Europe were not Celts. They predated the Celts by over a millenium." End of quote.

Scott Monahan: Alright, let's turn to our other guests right now. You've heard the charges. This is not ogam. Experts in Europe have said it's not ogam. And, yet, you continue to believe it is. Phil...

Phil Leonard: Well, gosh, I'm not sure I can answer all those charges in one breath. I... Let me start off with, Scott and Sally and John, I'd like to say that I'm glad to be here and to have an opportunity to discuss the things that were presented in the documentary. And, I appreciate that opportunity. Scott, most of these arguments are fairly well known to us and Bill and I have discussed them between the two of us as well as with some of our colleagues and those that are not our colleagues. And, we feel many of the objections are not valid. And we feel that many of them are not germaine. But, ah... Such things as the racism, the bounds, we've exceeded the bounds of reasonable archaeology and scholarship. And that we are a cult following. I really didn't think it was going to stoop to name-calling and mud-slinging but I guess we can get in there with the best. The archaeological profession continues to say these things without reviewing either our data or methods or evaluating either one. Neither of these two have asked to see our methods or our data. But, yet they have, like the archaeological profession has in the past, they've merely lectured us that it can't be true. And it's based on their doctrine and their beliefs. I don't think either of us really likes to be told that we don't know what we're doing by people who don't know what we're doing and haven't taken the trouble to find out why or what we are doing or what we've done. We've spent a great... They've spent a great deal of time looking for reasons to reject our work, but none to see the data we have. To me, that's incredibly unscientific. And I wonder why they haven't asked to see our data.

Scott Monahan: Isn't it true...

Phil Leonard: Excuse me just a minute. We have enough good data that our hypothesis should be evaluted and debated in normal forums and if it were, we wouldn't have to be here.

Scott Monahan: Now, as I understand it, no one has gone back from the State Archaeologist's Office to the Hackberry Springs site even though it's been listed in the National Register of Historic Places, since that report by Dave Stuart was made in 1977, eight and a half years ago. Isn't that true?

Sally Cole: I don't have any idea.

John Gooding: I wouldn't say that.

Sally Cole: I don't know.

Scott Monahan: I believe if you check the records you'll find that no one has returned other than an aerial photograph of the site.

Sally Cole: But, I don't know how much of our data you've used. I mean, I would really say that I don't know how much archaeological data, if you figure that you made your case in the show that we just saw, you know, we were sitting here talking about how these grooves were made as if that somehow excluded the American Indian from making them which is just outrageous. I mean, we know American Indians made sharpening grooves. We've had people even to duplicate them exactly in Montana. Recently a man named Fell duplicated very carefully every type of groove found. These grooves are literally found from Alberta to Baja, California. And, I'm saying that these sharpening grooves that line up the way you define them as being ogam cannot be separated from the fact that these sharpening grooves occur everywhere with sites, with incised rock art, which is dated not from very early dates, but from pretty much proto-historic and historic.

Bill McGlone: How do you know they can't be separated if you've never looked at the criteria we use for doing so?

Sally Cole: But, my point is that you can't take things out of context, either. And you are doing...

Bill McGlone: But, you've pre-judged us.

Sally Cole: No, I haven't. I watched the movie. I'd never seen the movie...

Bill McGlone: You must have if you haven't looked at what we've done. We have a series of criteria.

Sally Cole: But have you looked at our data?

Bill McGlone: Yes, and we consider it, but you don't know that because you haven't asked us.

Sally Cole: Well that's not really true.

Bill McGlone: ...that you haven't asked us?

Sally Cole: I would... I have never heard of your work, literally, until I got a letter about seeing a site in southeastern Colorado and I saw this film. Now that's the only time I have ever heard of your work. Nobody's ever brought in documentation to me and said, "Would you review this?" or "Would you look at this?" or "What do you think of this?"

Bill McGlone: It's incredible to me that you would pass the judgment you do on the film and never ask us for the basis on which the film was made.

Sally Cole: Well, but I'm upset because you haven't used good archaeological data...

Bill McGlone: We have. We have.

Sally Cole: No, I didn't see any good archaeological data in that film.

Bill McGlone: ...in the film. But, we have, the basis for what we have includes those things.

Sally Cole: Well, you need to put that in there. I mean that needs to be in there.

Bill McGlone: I didn't make the film.

Sally Cole: No, I agree with that.

John Gooding: I would like to ask, I would like to ask what refereed archaeological forum you have published your work in?

Bill McGlone: They won't take it.

Phil Leonard: That's one of the problems.

Bill McGlone: We are barred from it. That's one of our biggest complaints. They will not let us present it.

John Gooding: Why do you suppose that is? What is it...

Bill McGlone: Because they have pre-judged it.

Phil Leonard: They haven't looked at it so...

Sally Cole: But, Barry Fell's work is published everywhere. I mean there's volumes of Barry Fell's work around. Thousands of people have read his work, so if his work is your work in a sense, you are published. I mean I realize that it's not your independent work but he mentions the names of... I picked up one his books. I went through it. He mentioned the name of a lot of people that work for him or have worked with him in the Plains.

Bill McGlone: What's the point?

Sally Cole: I'm saying that that work is published.

Bill McGlone: Not in the...where he just explained.

John Gooding: Those are refereed journals.

Bill McGlone: And that's where it should be published. But we can't. They won't let us submit.

John Gooding: Well, perhaps it's...

Bill McGlone: We have tried on many occasions and they will deny us every time.

John Gooding: How many radio-carbon dates have you generated from the archaeological sites that you discuss in this film?

Bill McGlone: We are not allowed to dig for them. Only you...

John Gooding: Many of these are on private land. If you have...

Sally Cole: Yes...

John Gooding: If you had the permission of the land owner you could have extracted radio-carbon dates from those sites. The Colorado Archaeological Society, the legitimate amateur community in Colorado, does it annually. They...

Bill McGlone: And, how do you tie that to the rock art?

Sally Cole: The same way.

John Gooding: Well, now that's an interesting point. That's a very interesting point because besides the rock art, what evidence do you have that there were Celts or Punic migrators or folks that were bringing Egyptian, dynastic Egyptian icons to Colorado, aside from those marks on those rocks which you freely interpret, what evidence do you have that they were here?

Sally Cole: That's why we're saying you use the archaeological data. Archaeology isn't just Indian. It could be...

Phil Leonard: Well, you see one of the problems is you folks are allowed to dig and we're not. And, if we do dig, even on private land, as one dig was made on private land, and the report that came out from the State Archaeologist's department was, without consulting the data that was obtained, was to say that it was done by four-wheeling, speaking of four-wheel drive vehicles, pot-hunters...

Sally Cole: Is there a report available?

Phil Leonard: ...without knowing who did it or why.

Sally Cole: But, is there a report available?

Phil Leonard: And the State Archaeologist was requested out there three times and the local county archaeological amateur group was requested to come out there twice. And they... The last time for both of them, they were requested to come out and supervise the dig, help with the dig, do the dig, or be involved in any way that they felt that they would like to be and they were not. They refused. They said it was "trash". They weren't going to be involved.

Sally Cole: But, don't you think that that's indicative... I mean if I tried to enter into Marine Biology today, just sit down and write, ask to be published in Marine Biology textbooks, do you think they're going to publish me? I mean, even if I tried on my level, because I'm not on that level...

Phil Leonard: That wasn't just what I said.

Sally Cole: I realize that.

Phil Leonard: Who's digging?

Sally Cole: It's who's digging.

Phil Leonard: The question is, "Who was digging?" not "Who's publishing?".

Sally Cole: But the point is you're asking for people to accept you, like State Archaeologist and archaeological societies...

Phil Leonard: Only asking for people to come out and see what's there and to make their statement.

Bill McGlone: And see what's being done. We have never asked for more than evaluation. We do not think we've proved our case in that sense. All we think is we have enough substantial data you folks ought to be looking at it. And that's as far as we go.

Sally Cole: That's fine. I'm, we're looking. We looked at this film. And if you want to show us documentation... I mean, you want to show us more and more and more of this same thing that you're doing. But, if you're reading these things, number one, you need to invite one of these scholars in Celtic.

Bill McGlone: We have.

Sally Cole: And if you've invited a scholar in Celtic and they won't, you know, if you... That's who you need. Because we are not linguists.

Phil Leonard: Yes. Robert Myer, who is Professor of Celtic Studies at the Catholic University of Americas in Washington, D.C., has said, on television, discussing this very subject of ogam in America, he has said that, "I know people...", and referring to people like Kenneth Jackson who have said it's nothing but Indian scribblings but has never been to the sites to look at them, but Myer has been out to the sites and he has looked at it and he's a Celtic scholar...

Sally Cole: Then I think you should take your work to him to publish it.

Phil Leonard: And he has said... And... May I finish? And he has said that he believes that it is ogam and he describes the language used, the grammar, the types of words and the roots and then he gives some tentative date. And, on top of that, he said, "This is as important to Celtic scholars as the Dead Sea scrolls."

Scott Monahan: I think we ought to make one other point at this juncture. Kenneth Jackson's name was obtained by the Department of Interior here in Denver by a gentleman, Dr. Logan, and that notice was given to Dave Stuart before they even went out to Hackberry Springs. So, they knew where they could count on an anti-Fell critique, ahead of time, even before the research was done.

Sally Cole: Anti-Fell? I mean how did they know he was anti-Fell?

Scott Monahan: Because his colleague...

Bill McGlone: Stuart Piggott.

Scott Monahan: ...Stuart Piggott, I believe said that, you can count on an "explosive" reaction from him.

Sally Cole: Well, I think we have a letter from Dr. Jackson saying why he was upset, don't we?

Phil Leonard: Yes, I might say one other word about your expert there. Could you select that letter again from...

Bill McGlone: Watkins.

Phil Leonard: ...Watkins? If you will...there it is...if you will look at his fine example of ogam in which he, you have so strongly relied upon, then you compare it to a respectable example of ogam, you'll find that he doesn't even have the correct number of strokes for the letter D. And, so your expert can't even write ogam himself. And then he goes on...

John Gooding: I see. And, that's why he is the linguist at Harvard and you are not.

Phil Leonard: I didn't say that. What I'm saying is that he doesn't know as much as you make him to believe, or you would have us to believe.

John Gooding: I see.

Phil Leonard: And, it's possible that experts are not as expert as they are thought to be...or as they pretend to be.

John Gooding: ...as stock brokers from Salt Lake City. I see.

Phil Leonard: ...or as brokers from Salt Lake City. It's possible that someone in this world knows something about archaeology that you do not.

John Gooding: We can get into that.

Phil Leonard: It's possible that people know about stock brokering that I do not. So, there's always someone who knows something you don't. And when we...

Bill McGlone: There are a number of major errors in that letter.

Phil Leonard: There are a number of major errors.

Bill McGlone: He talks about ogam as being on the vertical edge of the rock. He says stem lines are not drawn. All over the British Isles they are drawn in several other parts of the world. Your other expert that says there's no ogam outside the British Isles is absolutely incorrect. There is some in Europe, in Africa, in North and South America. It exists and it is ogam.

Sally Cole: Well, it's either ogam or it's not. And, I think it's just like English. It's like a lot of these things you're reading. You're saying, "This could say," or "This may say." If it were written in English, you would just translate it. I mean it either is English or it's not. As far as I'm concerned, if it's a language, a written language, then it can be read. And, I have a problem with that in the film and I have a problem with just looking it up in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica and them telling me that the only ogam, officially ogam, is in the British Isles. It dates from the fourth century AD and to somewhere around the sixteenth century and it goes on like that and that's just an official definition of ogam. So, when you talk to me about ogam you've got to talk to me about ogam. If you're going to talk about something else then we need to name what that is and define it separately from ogam because, like I said, I am not acquainted with that. All I know is what I look up and what I study. And I really feel that this is a problem. And what I was getting at when I interrupted you was if you have someone in Celtic languages who sees the value of what you're doing and recognizes it, that is an avenue. If you want to be published, that's an avenue because really what you're looking at here is archaeological in the sense that we look at it because it's the remains of people no longer...

Bill McGlone: That's being pursued.

Sally Cole: Right, prehistoric or historic.

Bill McGlone: Explain the ogam.

Phil Leonard: Yes, I wanted to let her finish.

Bill McGlone: Clearly.

Phil Leonard: I think, Sally, the point that you've brought out is a very good one. If it's ogam or if it isn't ogam and how do we know when someone's saying it's ogam and some isn't. It's really a problem of semantics. What we have is we have a small group of people that are... I think you look at the overall picture in terms of history and in terms of present day as well. You really have a relatively small group of people who are saying that ogam is something that is written on a vertical angle of a rock and which has little short strokes for vowels. And then you have things like the Book of Ballymote which comes from the fourteenth century. And it has dozens and dozens of varieties of ogam. Some that are written in circles. Some that are written on lines. Some that are written on flat surfaces. There are all kinds. And it calls all of them ogam.

Sally Cole: That's interesting because...

Phil Leonard: And... May I finish?

Sally Cole: Yeah.

Phil Leonard: Now, what we have is we have someone describing today a mere subtype, which, by the way, they're ignoring some of their own ogam right in Ireland. And, you know, they ought to be looking at some of that because it's written on flat surfaces. It's written on cave walls there, over in Scotland. And, there is a great deal of it in Scotland that is written on flat surfaces. We have... I could name people like Brash and Moore and MacAlister and Rule, Sullivan, Diack, Wainwright, Atkinson. These are all authors and Celtic scholars who have written about ogam on flat surfaces and with inscribed stemlines other than on the angle of the rock and other than on vertical surfaces. And, the list goes on. Now, I think the complaint here that I would have is that you're saying, "Well, these people are claiming that's ogam." Ogam is really something, a bigger picture. Ogam covers a larger variety of types of writing than just one. There are subtypes. And American ogam is a subtype. And, as a matter of fact, if we could see something on the screen, maybe we could see one that is recently found in Scotland. Slide number one, please. It'll be called Tollard House.

Bill McGlone: No, one'll be the Colorado...

Phil Leonard: This is Colorado. That's correct. This is a large inscription in Colorado not far from the site that we're talking about down at Hackberry Springs. And, slide number two, please. And, we'll see that they really could be done... This is Tollard House in Scotland. And, they really could be done by the same hand. They have that appearance. Now, there's another consonantal ogam from Scotland called the LogI Stone. Slide number three, please. There we are. Now, this is one that we've recently translated. Scholars have tried to translate this for over a hundred years now. And, they've found that...

John Gooding: Which scholars?

Phil Leonard: Well, people like Brash, Atkinson. Do you know of them?

John Gooding: No.

Bill McGlone: Rhys. All of the leading scholars have taken a crack at this particular one. And, the reason they haven't been able to translate it is because they have tried to translate it with vowels, as he will explain.

Sally Cole: But, I don't think this is applicable to Colorado, New World archaeology.

Scott Monahan: Well, it does demonstrate that Professor Jackson was wrong when he said that they were only found on the vertical stones, doesn't it?

Sally Cole: No, he's not the one that said that.

Bill McGlone: No, that was Watkins.

Phil Leonard: It was Watkins.

Sally Cole: Calvert Watkins.

Phil Leonard: Yeah, but nevertheless one of their experts said it and the expert was wrong. And this is right out of Logi, Scotland. And it's on a flat surface. It has been called ogam. You can read Brash. You can read Diack. You can read a number of people and they talk about this being ogam and their attempts at translating it, but because it lacks the funny little tick marks that they see on the edge of a rock that they call vowels in parts of Ireland, not all of Ireland, therefore they say, "Well, we don't know what to do with it."

John Gooding: Ah, so there is no more proof that it is ogam than that it isn't ogam.

Phil Leonard: Could I finish?

John Gooding: I just wanted to make that point at this juncture.

Phil Leonard: Thank you. Now, I'd like to finish. That... What we have is we have something that all the people have called ogam. And it has been translated. And it reads, that... Matter of fact, something that fits with the rebus... It reads that the, very possibly, that the sun shines, excuse me, Holy Bel on the day of balance, using the same words, by the way, "on the day of balance," as we find in the Anubis Caves in the film.

Scott Monahan: John, you're very skeptical. I can't help but notice it. What are your objections to this, this evidence that there has been some flat ogam found over in Europe?

John Gooding: I don't pretend to be a North European scholar. I don't pretend to take undocumented archaeological evidence, by that I mean, undated, out of context archaeological evidence and apply it across an ocean and a continent. It is not reasonable scholarship. It has... It has no reasonable, plausible, developable explanation. There is nothing in the vertical lines, either horizontal or vertical, in the Colorado caves that ties them to any horizontal or vertical lines on flat surfaces or round surfaces in England.

Sally Cole: They can't be tested.

John Gooding: Archaeological rock art in New Mexico and Arizona and Utah and western Colorado is being dated. It's being dated, as Sally has said, through linguistic evidence. Languages have a history of their own. And, languages change through time. For someone to sit here two centuries after those lines were drawn and claim to be able to do exact interpretations is outside the bounds of the study of the history of language which is called glautochronology. And, it is a study...

Phil Leonard: I beg to differ with you on that...

John Gooding: It is a study, in and of itself, and unless you have supporting evidence in these caves, by that I mean ancillary data, artifacts, features that are obviously Celtic and couldn't possibly be anything else, or Bronze Age tools or something like that, then...or...and radio-carbon dates to support it absolutely, you don't have the information upon which to base those arguments. I've been doing highway archaeology in Colorado for eleven years. There are 6 counties in Colorado. I have surveyed in every one of those counties. I have studied in every public repository of artifacts in the State of Colorado. I have looked at half of the major archaeological collections by amateur collectors in Colorado and I have never found a Celtic artifact, a Bronze Age artifact, a Roman artifact, an Egyptian artifact or anything that would be construed as pre-Columbian European. Those artifacts are not there. Radio-carbon data...

Scott Monahan: We're not showing artifacts...

Sally Cole: But the archaeology is material culture...

Scott Monahan: I think the question here, excuse me, I think the question here is are you capable of reading what does exist, the artifacts that can be considered the rock art? I mean the rock art...

John Gooding: That is not enough data.

Sally Cole: That is not enough data.

Scott Monahan: What kind of data would you need to establish beyond a shadow of a doubt, I mean what kind of data are you looking for if, if ogam or what can be translated as ogam doesn't suffice?

John Gooding: The implication in that film is that someone rode a boat across the Atlantic, up the Mississippi River, up the Arkansas River, and then hiked for about three days to get to a particular archaeological site where, lo and behold, you have this fluorescence of quote-unquote Celtic runes. Now, if someone was going to mount an expedition of that magnitude, I think that you just need to look at the real historical record of Europeans in America. From the time Columbus landed in the West Indies until the time the Spaniards actually arrived in southern North America was about three hundred years. And, they left behind them a trail of decimation, a trail of artifact, artifacts, a trail of cities...

Sally Cole: Animals.

John Gooding: All kinds of things.

Sally Cole: All kinds of things.

John Gooding: And, yet, there is no evidence that the Celts were in Colorado or that the Norse were ranging around the Great Lakes or that the Jews settled Kentucky and Tennessee in AD 60. This... These are complete fabrications that were practiced in archaeological pursuits 150 years ago when archaeology and anthropology was still in its infancy. Armchair anthropology is out the door these days. You have to have real scientific evidence to support any kind of assertion. And fabricated drawings, selective, fabricated drawings on rock are not enough evidence to make a point to anyone.

Sally Cole: I couldn't work with rock art if that's all I had. If I just went in and interpretted the rock art. Number one, the little figure in the Anubis Cave with his arms up and the Ra headdress fits exactly with proto-historic and historic rock art of the Plains. There are just hundreds of figures like that. Just hundreds and they range all the way from the northwestern Plains down into Texas. They're documented. There's...there's good papers on this. To take it and assign it to Egyptians is outside the realm of archaeology.

Scott Monahan: Well, let's explore this point. The inscriptions, or what seems to be the inscriptions in the eyes of the epigraphers, happen to be confirmed by the archaeo-astrononomy that's going on there.

Sally Cole: Wrong. The American Indian has a... There's a record of astronomical observation places within the context of American Indian pre-history.

John Gooding: I would like to draw your attention to a book by Dr. Anthony AvenI of Colgate University, Hamilton, New York. Now, this particular text, "Skywatchers of Ancient Mexico", is a thorough study of the American roots of astronomy. It includes all of the major Mayan sites, all of the major Valley of Mexico sites, and even sites in the southern United States. I would suggest that the Mayan and Aztec and Toltec calendars merit some discussion in these caves that we're discussing here. I think it's important for you people to keep in mind that native Americans looked at the sky. They saw the stars.

Bill McGlone: There's no question about that. We haven't denied that. We know they looked at the sky.

John Gooding: But you're imply...

Bill McGlone: Let me try this for you...

John Gooding: Okay.

Bill McGlone: ...just for a little bit. The problem here is that their archaeo-astronomy is not like our archaeo-astronomy. The American Indians, as far as anyone has so far found out, did not use the true equinox. Our stuff corresponds precisely and describes the true equino and even says that it is a day of two equal parts and it says that very clearly. They also did not use the cross-quarter days which were very important to the Celts and which set their calendar.

Sally Cole: How come you know that?

Bill McGlone: Also, it is associated in every case... Ray Williamson. Read it. It goes, says in the United States, they did the equinox by the shaman putting stones into a bag and taking them out and counted the day halfway between solstices.

John Gooding: Which shaman?

Sally Cole: Which shaman?

John Gooding: Which tribe are you referring to?

Sally Cole: Which tribe?

Bill McGlone: In general, all of the tribes did it that way.

John Gooding: That is not true.

Phil Leonard: That's not what Ray Williamson says.

John Gooding: If there was a Hopi priest here he would say something entirely different to you, sir.

Bill McGlone: They did not determine it to the day of the true equinox. What they determined was the day halfway between the two and that is not the true equinox by a day or so...

Phil Leonard: See, you may not know this...

Bill McGlone: You may not know this, but that is the way it works.

Sally Cole: But, you can't say that for all Indians for all time. Your talking about limited information.

Bill McGlone: All I'm saying is your experts do say that they use that day...

Sally Cole: Ray Williamson is not an archaeologist.

Bill McGlone: (with Phil) He's an archaeo-astronomer.

Bill McGlone: And they use that day...

Sally Cole: He's an astronomer.

Bill McGlone: In addition to that...

Sally Cole: I know him personally and he's not an archaeologist.

Bill McGlone: In addition to that, every one of these was found, to my mind, only because we made the translations first. None of them were obvious. As to what they do, in many cases I don't think you would ever figure it out if you had not read the ogam writing and the Gaelic language first. The one I describe in the film regarding the triangle of light and the twelve marks is described exactly in the translation. I did not know or have any idea what could happen at that site until I read that translation. I went there and the hair stood up on my arms when that thing worked exactly like it said it was going to work. And, I challenge you to figure that out without the translation.

Sally Cole: All I know is that a lot of astronomical sites have been figured out without any translations. And...

Bill McGlone: But they are of certain types. We know what those are.

Sally Cole: ...I do know that it's perfectly within... The Plains are very little known in ways like that. We have some medicine wheels, things like that have been suggested to have astronomical observation use. But, other than that, I would say that if you go into Garrick Mallery's work and the picture writing of the American Indians, you would find that the Plains used in their art forms, in their iconography, a lot of stars, a lot of moons. The Sun ceremony is the number one Plains, in the historic period, ceremony. It was their chief ritual.

Bill McGlone: We've read all of Garrick Mallery and we've considered it all.

Sally Cole: Okay. It's a chief, it's a chief, it's just a major ritual. And, there is good evidence to suggest that that was proto-historically, perhaps as far back in the Plains, given the transitions of their art.

Bill McGlone: We understand that.

Sally Cole: But, they also used small places like your Crack Cave for their visionquest. They used places of special significance. They made marks for various reasons. They might have made tools there because of the significance of the place. They might have very well made tally marks because of the significance of the place. The key is they could have used that being fully aware of the importance of the sun shining in there at particular times.

Bill McGlone: But it does not read and disclose the site.

Sally Cole: That's fine.

Phil Leonard: The Crack Cave...

Bill McGlone: I think it would be a good time for me to show them the rest of what we've done.

Sally Cole: But, you have, you have marks on both sides of your cave.

Bill McGlone: And they read.

Phil Leonard: And they read.

Sally Cole: They read, but what do they read? You read on one side that something was going to happen in this cave and on the other side you said these look like sun rays. I, I mean, that's just translation.

Bill McGlone: That's not correct.

Phil Leonard: You must have misunderstood what was actually being filmed.

Bill McGlone: You misunderstood the film.

Sally Cole: I know that you said...

John Gooding: You said, "They look...(with Sally)...like sun rays."

Bill McGlone: But, they were on the same side as where we read.

Sally Cole: Okay.

Bill McGlone: They were at the point where we read, we read, "Strikes...",

Phil Leonard: The viewing audience...

Bill McGlone: ...and knew from that that that's where it was going to strike. It's what gave us the idea that that's where it would be.

Sally Cole: Well, my point is, and I think John's...

Bill McGlone: We have since read the rest of what's in that cave, by the way.

Sally Cole: I think my point is and John's point is, really, that you're trying to get credibility within the archaeological community and archaeology is the study of material culture. And, if you want...

Bill McGlone: And nothing more?

Sally Cole: That's right.

Scott Monahan: Obviously, we're...

John Gooding: Reasonable scholarship...

Sally Cole: And, reasonable scholarship, that's right...

John Gooding: ...requires that you have evidence...

Sally Cole: ...that you have evidence.

John Gooding: ...for your interpretations. And, at this point, beyond these freely drawn conclusions that you've done with the graphic aid of some really fine editing, you don't have any substantial arguments that will hold up before a juried panel of professionals.

Scott Monahan: How are the archaeologists going to be exposed to this? They have demonstrated that they already have their minds made up about ogam in America. It just simply can't exist.

Sally Cole: I don't agree with that.

Scott Monahan: How will, how will this impasse ever be broken?

John Gooding: You must not have understood what I told you earlier about the actual historical evidence that any culture will leave behind once it passes through an area.

Sally Cole: That's the presumption of archaeology.

Scott Monahan: There haven't been a lot of digs done down there and it's not the fault of these gentlemen.

Phil Leonard: Only you people can do the digs.

Bill McGlone: That's right.

Scott Monahan: It's up to the archaeologists to do the digs.

Bill McGlone: You won't believe it if I do it.

Phil Leonard: If I find a Celtic shield, you're going to say, "Well, the problem is was it intrusive? Did he really find it or did somebody else?"

Sally Cole: That's the way science works.

John Gooding: Archaeologists ask each other those questions all the time.

Sally Cole: ...all the time.

Phil Leonard: But if you find it, then there's no question as to your integrity.

Sally Cole: That's not true. We challenge each other all of the time. In fact, all the little jibes in there...

Bill McGlone: But would you accept it if I found it?

Sally Cole: ...at the archaeological community don't bother us because they're aimed, we aim them at ourselves....a lot.

Scott Monahan: Then what kind...

Bill McGlone: Would you accept it if I found it?

Scott Monahan: Then what kind of co-operation...

Sally Cole: I want to know how you found it. I want the maps. I want all, everything accurate...

Bill McGlone: But that's why we want you to find it.

Phil Leonard: That's why we want you to find it. Then you'll be satisfied.

John Gooding: It would be interesting...

Sally Cole: I don't think that's it.

John Gooding: ...to discuss this site that you excavated, just for a moment. Now this site in southeastern Denver that you were talking about...

Sally Cole: ...having excavated?

Phil Leonard: Yes, yes.

John Gooding: It was on ____ ____ _ __ ____ _____, right?

Phil Leonard: Well, if you wish to disclose the site.

John Gooding: Yes, I think it's worthwhile because interestingly enough I visited that site in 1978 on the preliminary survey for C-470 and as it turns out that particular rock shelter in that area is going to be impacted by the highway. And, I did notice those abrasion marks on the upper lip at the drip line of the cave. And, I thought at the time...

Phil Leonard: We did feel and say that they did go clear down through into the ground, not just on the upper drip line.

John Gooding: That's fine.

Phil Leonard: Alright. As long as we have the facts straight.

John Gooding: I thought at some time that maybe, when the highway went through there that there would be federal funds available to excavate that site. And then I did not return until approximately 1982 and there was a pit in the ground approximately three times the size of this table. And I would like to ask you where the archaeological report is for that excavation?

Phil Leonard: There is none because the archaeologists refused to come and they refused to be involved. And when they finally did make a report, which they did..

John Gooding: They being who?

Sally Cole: Who? Who made a report?

Bill McGlone: The State Office.

Phil Leonard: Yes, the State Office.

Sally Cole: Well, who?

Phil Leonard: I think Linda Gregonis and O. D. Hand.

Sally Cole: Who dug it, though? They're the ones that should have reported on it.

John Gooding: Amateur archaeologists write up reports. That's what "Southwestern Lore" and the Colorado Archaeological Society are all about.

Bill McGlone: The owners. The owners dug it.

Phil Leonard: You should speak to the owners. They're the ones who dug it.

Scott Monahan: Let's...

John Gooding: Oh, I see, you did not participate in that excavation?

Bill McGlone: He was there, but the owners dug it.

Phil Leonard: I was there, yes. I did participate in that I was there.

Sally Cole: Well, don't you think that'd been really valuable if you'd reported on that? Because, you know we might have gotten something...

Phil Leonard: It was really valuable if we could have gotten a professional to come out and do that.

Sally Cole: Oh, come on! Lots of amateurs work. Lots of amateurs archaeologists do a lot of really great work.

Scott Monahan: But, I think we've discovered that few archaeologists are interested in doing any kind of work that would verify these theories.

Sally Cole: Do you know how much it costs to properly excavate a site?

John Gooding: I don't think, I don't think you understand the point, Mr. Monahan. You're missing the point entirely here. And that is that archaeologists are looking for anything that contributes to the pre-historic record that is verifiable. Nothing that is in that program, nothing that these gentlemen have said here today, is verifiable beyond the marks that they choose to interpret. That is the thrust of anthropological research. You have to, you have to verify what you're saying. I, I have to take offense at your statement because the discipline has no room for free wheeling interpretations of whatever one may come up against. That is why students go to school for so many years and sacrifice a lot just to maintain the work. And, I, I think you have to understand that if there are no Celtic artifacts, if we're to believe that there is a boat that went up the Arkansas River... Please keep in mind that the trappers could never bring anything other than a small canoe up those streams and when furs and other goods went out of this country, they had to do it at the spring high water. That's the only time. And then they could only go downstream. If there was...

Phil Leonard: But we never said a boat came up the river.

Sally Cole: There's a picture of a boat coming up the river.

John Gooding: That's the implication in the story.

Phil Leonard: But you see you're putting words in our mouth and then making assumptions.

John Gooding: That's the implication in the film.

Bill McGlone: ...follows the river...

Phil Leonard: That's so unscientific of you to do that.

Bill McGlone: Yeah, I don't believe that.

John Gooding: That's the implication of your film.

Phil Leonard: You've really betrayed your profession.

Sally Cole: You showed a picture in there of some kind of little boat paddling up the river.

Scott Monahan: You're wrong.

Sally Cole: Paddling away, across the ocean, or something.

Bill McGlone: No, no.

Sally Cole: There is something in there. There is a graphic of a boat leaving the New World.

Scott Monahan: There is a boat, there is a boat crossing back to the Old World.

Sally Cole: There's a boat leave, leaving the New World. Right. Okay.

Bill McGlone: That, that bothers you?

John Gooding: Considerably.

Sally Cole: No, we have no...

Bill McGlone: ...that, that a boat would cross the Atlantic Ocean? What's the problem?

Sally Cole: No, I'll tell you, within the archaeological community there are a whole lot of Old World diffusionists. They operate very successfully in the New World archaeology. There's no problem with them. They advance their theories. They test them and they would all tell you, today, and the whole time which is where John and I are, is that the amount of data in North America and South America after fifty years of research is so small you could put it on this table, that supports, in any kind of way, and this is linguistically, physically and materially, to support...

Bill McGlone: They would not all tell us that because we deal with many of them and they tell us exactly the opposite to that.

Sally Cole: Tell them to present their data.

Bill McGlone: They do.

Phil Leonard: They do and they publish.

Bill McGlone: It's, it's beginning to get in the textbooks. The cause has been achieved.

Sally Cole: But it has to be more than just a couple of things...

Bill McGlone: The independent inventionist cause is over!

Sally Cole: No.

Bill McGlone: Oh, yes.

Sally Cole: Impossible, because...

Bill McGlone: It is not impossible.

Sally Cole: ...the American Indian may have been in, in the Americas for over twenty thousand years...

Bill McGlone: So?

Sally Cole: ...even if you had these people saying...

Bill McGlone: So?

Sally Cole: ...somebody landed here, do you really think that the American Indian is not the chief architect of that culture?

Bill McGlone: That does not present, that does not prevent some measure of diffusion.

Sally Cole: Absolutely. We don't say that.

Bill McGlone: That does not to say everything is done by diffusion.

Sally Cole: We don't say that.

Bill McGlone: I took a lot of offense...

Sally Cole: We say, "Let's see the data."

Bill McGlone: ...to the statement originally made by John that all" of the rock art we were talking about... We are not doing that. We're talking about that very small fraction that happens to be ogam writing...

Sally Cole: But you can't take it out of context.

Bill McGlone: We have a series...

Sally Cole: You can't take rock art out of context any more than...

Bill McGlone: We don't take it out of context.

Sally Cole: You are. These sites are whole sites.

Bill McGlone: (to Phil) You want to try it?

Phil Leonard: Well, I think we ought to take a look at a slide...

Bill McGlone: I think we ought to show them what we do.

John Gooding: Oooow, evidence!

Phil Leonard: If, if you think everything is Indian, then perhaps we could have slide twelve.

Sally Cole: Well, I think a lot of sheep herder rock art out there.

Phil Leonard: Well, alright.

Bill McGlone: Do you take it out of context?

Sally Cole: Nope. I look at it and it's written in English and I interpret it as being something.

Bill McGlone: We look at the ogam, it's written in Gaelic, we interpret it the same way.

Sally Cole: No, but I don't...

Bill McGlone: Precisely.

Sally Cole: But I know there's been sheep herders there...

John Gooding: That's right and ogam has not changed.

Sally Cole: I have got the data, I've got evidence of homesteads and sheep herders.

Bill McGlone: (to Phil) I think you ought to show them...

Phil Leonard: Would you, would you not believe the sheep herders initials that say, "Mary loves John," if you didn't have some kind of physical data, like perhaps some chicken bones at the bottom of it?

Sally Cole: I walked out of the Old World into a cave and I said...and it said, "Mary loves John," and I was doing proper archaeological research, I would say, "Has there been anyone English, here?"

Bill McGlone: Well, where's your material artifacts?

Sally Cole: That's what I meant. I'd want to find them.

Phil Leonard: But, would you look...

Scott Monahan: I think...wait a minute...

Sally Cole: That's what I'm trying to say. I want to find something to support that data.

Phil Leonard: But, would you look once you had seen them?

Scott Monahan: I think we have to go on the record what has been done by these gentlemen, what can be done by archaeologists. Obviously, the program "History on the Rocks" raises a lot of interesting questions. Is there sufficient curiosity on the part of the two of you, and you can speak for other archaeologists if you'd like, to investigate? Or, is it best left as a radical idea off in left field and forgotten? What should be done with these sites?

Sally Cole: (laughter)

Scott Monahan: I mean, you keep saying...

John Gooding: Well, I think...

Scott Monahan: ...further evidence has to be found...

John Gooding: Exactly.

Scott Monahan: ...yet nobody's digging...

Bill McGlone: To prove it.

Sally Cole: Do you know that when you dig a site that you destroy it? Do you know that a hundred years ago the data we...

Scott Monahan: Well, then we're back at, back at square one.

Sally Cole: No. No. Because that's the problem with attitudes. It's because a lot of sites have to be dug. They have to be dug because they're going to be impacted or they are eroding away. We are busy working on those sites. They occur everywhere. Everywhere in North America.

John Gooding: That's my job.

Sally Cole: That's his job. We don't have to go out and dig sites because what we could discover today in that site, in a hundred years they could tell you twice as much information. If we destroy...

Bill McGlone: So, you dig no sites?

Sally Cole: We dig no sites that don't need to be dug...because if we do, we destroy a site.

Bill McGlone: How do you decide they need to be dug?

Scott Monahan: Or that might violate...

Sally Cole: They're going to be impacted outside of our hands.

Bill McGlone: You only dig the ones that are going to be impacted?

Sally Cole: That, that's the hope. There are people who do research archaeology under that guise who go out and test sites. But to dig and to excavate a whole site and you realize when you test it you're only testing a portion of the site. You put in a small test pit. If your ogam, or if your Celtic shield is over here outside of the test pit, it's going to be missed. So, there's got to be more there than a Celtic shield. There's got to be more evidence there, but I'm saying that a lot of people test sites to see the depth of the site, to recommend whether it should be avoided in certain situations that can't be avoided, whether it should be excavated. There is a lot of testing going on. We learn a lot from that, but we don't voluntarily go out and dig and destroy a site to prove something that has no other basis at all. I mean, nothing else around... You... Why would all of your artifacts, for instance, be, be hidden? Why wouldn't there be a lot of things that had been eroded out, that would be lying in back of shelters or down in the bottoms of arroyos and things? If we could find those things, you raise a question, you could approach someone to do research there.

Scott Monahan: I think we're rapidly running out of time. Phil, I'd like you wrap up. What kind of help could you get from...

Bill McGlone: I'll do it.

Scott Monahan: Alright. Bill, what kind of help would you like to see from professionals in the archaeological field?

Bill McGlone: We feel we've made enough of a case for the presence of ogam writing and the implication, of course, of Celtic peoples, that it should be carried further. It should be evaluated further. We do not think that we have proven the case of Celts in Colorado. We think, though, that we have enough evidence to carry it as a strong, working hypothesis and that's what we do. We think we do have a convincing case for the presence of ogam here. And, we have a lot of new information and we get it all the time. It just keeps adding on and adding on and adding on. We can't explain all the details of how they got here, what they were doing here and so forth. We know that. It's help from them we need to do those sorts of things. People have got to be into this thing on the basis of what we have now and the indications we have now to the degree to help make the final proof of some of these items. The indications are so strongly there that they should be involved. Now, are we supposed to summarize our entire presentation?

Scott Monahan: I'll take that as your summary.

Bill McGlone: Well, I haven't done it.

Scott Monahan: Well, I'll give you another thirty seconds. Hurry up, please.

Bill McGlone: Okay. Well, first I want to say that we believe there are inscriptions in southeast Colorado and that they are ogam. They're in a context of a pathway of inter-connecting canyons there and they look precisely like those in the Old World. Many have been translated in Old Gaelic with messages that have led us to unique, absolutely unique, archaeo-astronomy displays and the astronomy confirms the translations. We also believe that you folks are so entrenched in a belief system and, so deeply and protectively, that you have been completely unscientific in your approach to us. You have dogma. We have data.

Scott Monahan: Alright. John, I'll let you have the last word on this.

John Gooding: Archaeology is an incremental discipline. It builds from the first information that you find about the prehistoric culture, outward. Your data is not supportable by any absolute or concurrent evidence. I think that since this first flap in 1977, a group of people have completely disregarded the previous archaeological record. I know of significant amounts of work that have happened on the Chaquaqua plateau in southeastern Colorado and none of them support the evidence that you have tried to present in your data. I believe that it is very unfortunate that these kinds of simplistic theories and this type of white European sole source of all ideas that are important in the world is without ethical merit. The native Americans left a rich and beautiful heritage in Colorado. And, unfortunately, through your efforts, I think it has been twisted and fabricated and misinterpretted for some unknowable end.

Concluding remarks by moderator

Scott Monahan: Mr. Gooding made some good points. He is correct that no tools or other Bronze Age artifacts have been found in Colorado. That doesn't necessarily mean they are not out there to be found in the future. Mr. Gooding is also right in observing that the documentary did not offer alternative interpretations of the rock art. As producer of the show, my intentions were to tell an untold story that may turn out to be Colorado's oldest recorded story. Archaeologists were not included because none bothered to go to the sites and until the show was done, they could not "see" what was happening. A rough cut version of the documentary was previewed by the Colorado State Archaeologist almost three months before it aired. Leslie Wildesen then visited the Crack Cave and Anubis Caves in March 1985, for a half a day. Although she doesn't endorse the conclusions, she has stated, "The ideas put forth by Mr. McGlone and his group should be the jumping off point for more such studies." Mr. Gooding is wrong about one fundamental point: that racism played a role in the presentation of this story. Neither I, nor anyone I know who is associated with the Epigraphic Society, has anything against American Indians, past or present. We all recognize the Indians' rich culture and tradition. The charge that this whole story has been made up to somehow diminish the importance of Indians in American History is just plain outrageous and incorrect. We know people sailed the oceans before Columbus. A sunken Roman galley sits unexplored a mile off the coast of Rio de Janiero. A Norse village has been found in Newfoundland. And what about the ancient villages in the Peruvian mountains that have the University of Colorado archaeologists so excited? The fact is ancient people were able and willing to sail from home. Exploration is as old as the human race. Now, we also have these strange marks on sandstone caves. Can it be mere coincidence that ogam translations explain at least four equinox shadow plays? I think it's more than coincidence. The sites deserve serious thought and study. I'm Scott Monahan. Thank you for watching.

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