In his mind he had satisfied himself that the skeleton was not a recent burial but an in-situ deposit of a man that had drowned 150 000 years ago, 50 000 years older than the then conventional view.
He had come to this conclusion because the deposit was cemented and the whole was removed as a single block from which the bones had to be chiseled out.
He was correct in figuring out that the deposit was water lain but failed to recognize evidence that the body was in fact buried, something that was pointed out later by the presence of small chips from a younger sequence above and also the fact that the skeleton is intact. this is rare for most hominid fossils in a water lain deposit unless they are rapidly buried.
Due to the controversy 3 German expeditions were launched to go back to confirm more details, the first two failed to find Oldoway and the third found it but WWI broke out and they were recalled. Reck himself was detained in 1916 and interred in Egypt for the remainder of the war.
After WWI German East Africa changed to British Rule and little further was done since they had their "Piltdown man"and were not bothered with looking for evolutionary ancestors coming out of the continent of Africa.
Carbon 14 dating eventually dated the skeleton at 19 000 years old but not after a later scientist to work Olduvai, Louis Leakey had mad a bit of a fool of himself. But, more on this character later.
