Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Ever since the founding of the Kolbe Center, almost 22 years ago, scientists on our advisory council have conducted important research into evidence for dinosaur and human co-existence. Our team has arranged for the C-14 dating of many dinosaur bones over the last two decades, the results of which provide overwhelming evidence for the rapid and recent burial of most of the fossil record in a Global Flood a few thousand years ago. Led by the late, indomitable retired research chemist Hugh Miller, affectionately known as “Hugh the Elder,” numerous Kolbe members have also participated in excavations in the Paluxy River bed in Glendive, Texas, where dinosaur and human footprints have been found in the same Cretaceous rock.
The main member of our leadership team who has been carrying on the work of Hugh Miller is Ademar Rakowsky, who has visited the Paluxy River bed several times and who has written an excellent summary of the history of the Paluxy dinosaur and human footprints which has just been posted on the Kolbe website. In this newsletter I would like to share a section of the article, in which the author demonstrates the authenticity of the Paluxy footprints.
THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT
Important to keep in mind is the fact that human feet are unique in the animal world: they each have five toes that generally point forward, with some splaying (Fig. 19).
Unlike the animals closest to man in anatomy, the apes, humans have an adducted (aligned with centerline) big toe that helps us push forward as we walk: the big toe of an ape tends to point to the side, and serves as a grasping digit in addition to locomotion (Fig. 20). Ape feet, lacking arches, are made for grasping, not for upright walking.
Also, human feet are notable for having a large heel bone, and short toes as compared with the apes (Fig. 21).
The human foot is designed for bipedal locomotion, a function unique among mammalian animals. Its structure reflects that (Fig. 22): a large heel in back for holding full body weight during stride, longitudinal (lengthwise) and transverse (width-wise) arches for shock absorption and mid-stride weight transfer during mid-stride, a ball in front of the arches to transfer weight to the toes close to a stride’s completion, and toes serving as stabilizers and for propulsion for the next stride, with the big toe doing most of the work.
Because of its unique function the human foot leaves a print unique in the animal world. In soft material the human footprint shows a large heel at the back, a figure-eight-type narrowing in the middle, where the arches are, and forward-pointing toes (with big toe prominent) that come out of a wide ball at the front.
That said, recognizing a human footprint in whatever medium it is left in, whether a wet shape on dry rock or an impression in mud or soft sand, is straightforward. If pertinent details, like toes especially, are missing from the print, one can argue that a print is merely an elongated oval hole or the damaged impression left by any creature, human or not. That’s why in such cases it is important to look at the impressions made in the entire trail, if a trail exists, to determine from the other prints what creature made the impressions. If one is honest in one’s science, one will accept the finding of the uniquely shaped human print at face value, and not allow philosophical presuppositions to lead one to the denial of the obvious.
KEY HUMAN FOOTPRINTS
Despite having come across a large number of emails, photographs, articles, personal correspondence, etc. among the files of the late Hugh Miller, a Columbus, Ohio-based Paluxy investigator since the 1980’s, for whom the author worked before the end of Mr. Miller’s life, these files including various accounts and photos of finds as they happened, controversies, and even a case of vandalism of a human print, the author has chosen to focus on the key finds because, given the current intense philosophical/religious opposition to evidence supporting the Young Earth paradigm, it is important to present evidence that is difficult for anyone to refute.
The area in question is featured on this map (Fig. 23) from the personal files of the late Mr. Miller.
The river winds quite a bit and, from the author’s personal experience of the portions in town (E on map), by the Creation Evidence Museum (C), and the prime investigational area (A) on and near the McFall Ranch, it flows in a narrow, rocky channel of varying depth consisting of a bed of stepped horizontal limestone strata, with little sediment on them. The channel sides are staircase-type outcrops of horizontal limestone beds with some loose slabs and vegetation. Above the channel sides one finds a multi-foot layer of alluvium consisting of fossil-rich gravel, sand, and loamy soil (Fig. 24); this alluvium extends from the channel in spots in level, field-sized patches, like one would expect to find in the flood plain of any river. Beyond the alluvium areas, the land rises into savannah-vegetated hills with largely flat to rounded tops, but exhibiting the staircase bedrock in many places.
The authenticity of the footprints themselves along the Paluxy is supported not just by the unique shape of the human foot, but also frequently by mud pushups between the toes and along the sides of the foot, which is what one would normally expect of the prints of any creature walking through a muddy substance, which the assorted layers of limestone would have been before hardening, even by evolutionary thought.
In the 1950’s, O.W. Willet discovered the print along the banks of the Paluxy at the current site (D) of Dinosaur Valley State Park[28]. It is unmistakably human. Mud pushups are evident between and around the toes as well as along the foot margins.
The Burdick footprint was found in the area on the map at F, from a higher stratum on the bank of Cross Branch Creek.[29] It too, besides the unmistakable human anatomy, has mud pushups between the toes and around the foot. Multiple cross-sections through the print reveal mud or calcite crystal alignments around the toe contour, indicating that it really is a print, not a forgery.
Arguably, the crown jewel of the Paluxy River area footprints is the Alvis Delk print, found by Alvis Delk along a Paluxy River tributary in 2000. Initially, the slab of rock had a dinosaur footprint on it, and he had taken it as an addition to his fossil collection. Intending to sell the print eight years later to help pay off medical debt, he cleaned off the mud and found a human print within the tip of the dinosaur impression.[30] (Fig. 27)
The distinct human heel, arch, and five forward-pointing toes are clearly visible, as are mud pushups between the toes. Multiple X-rays and spiral CT scans have shown density changes under both the dinosaur and human feet (Fig. 28), indicating that the then-liquid mud was moved and compressed by overlying weight, thus precluding the possibility of hoaxer carving, which would have had a rock matrix of even density or density variations unrelated to the shape of the carving.
It is a shame that even within the ranks of those who believe in the literal historical truth of the sacred history of Genesis the Paluxy footprints are often dismissed as fakes or as misinterpretations of dinosaur footprints by ignorant amateurs. As Ademar Rakowsky has demonstrated in this excerpt from his article on the Paluxy footprints—and even more elaborately and persuasively in the complete article just posted on the Kolbe website—the Paluxy tracks provide proof, beyond any reasonable doubt, that dinosaurs and humans have always lived (and died) together on earth.
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,
Hugh Owen