Michael A. Cremo, also known by his devotional nameDrutakarmā dāsa, is an American freelance researcher who identifies himself as a Vedic creationist and an "alternative archeologist" and argues that humans have lived on Earth for millions of years. In case of artifacts allegedly found in the Eocene auriferous gravels of Table Mountain, California and discussed in his book Forbidden Archeology, Cremo argues for the existence of modern man on Earth as long as 30 to 40 million years ago. Forbidden Archeology, which he wrote with Richard L. Thompson, has attracted attention from mainstream scholars who have criticized the views given on archeology and describe it as pseudoscientific.
Cremo is a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and the Bhaktivedanta Institute. He has written several books and articles about Hindu spirituality under the name Drutakarmā dāsa. He has also been a contributing editor to the magazine Back to Godhead and a bhakti yoga teacher. Cremo told Contemporary Authors that he decided to devote his life to Krishna in the early 1970s, after receiving a copy of the Bhagavad Gita at a Grateful Dead concert. In the end of the 1990s he authored a paper on the official ISKCON statement on capital punishment. His work on "Puranic Time and the Archaeological Record" was published in ISKCON Communications Journal and Time and Archaeology.
''Forbidden Archeology''
Cremo's central claim in Forbidden Archeology is that humans have lived on Earth for tens to hundreds of millions of years, and that the scientific establishment has suppressed the fossil evidence of extreme human antiquity. In case of grooved spheres from pyrophyllite mines of Ottosdal, South Africa, Cremo proposes that they might be man-made artifacts as much as 2.8 billion years old. Forbidden Archeology has been criticized by mainstream scholars from a variety of disciplines.
Cremo, M. A. "The discoveries of Carlos Ribeiro: a controversial episode in nineteenth-century European archeology", Journal of Iberian Archaeology, vol. 12: 69-89.
Cremo, M. A. "Excavating the eternal: an indigenous archaeological tradition in India", Antiquity, 82:178-188.
Cremo, M. A. "Some Angles on the Anglo Debate", Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress, 4: 164-167.
Recent years
In recent years, Cremo has organized a number of conferences where ISKCON-associated academics exchanged views and experiences. In March 2009, Cremo appeared in a History Channeltelevision series called Ancient Aliens, and in 2010 a mini series of the same name.
