De Maillet's ideas on the history of mankind are the weakest part of his conception. He incorporates a number of myths and traditions which are simply incorrect. His system of calculating time does not work because no remains of humans are present in the kind of sedimentary rocks he examined. He believes man has a long history, that he originated in the water, and developed into a land animal. He knows it is a problem that men do not look as though they were sea creatures, but his explanations of such difficulties are feeble. What he had done was to "combine a correct understanding of artefacts of the Iron and Bronze Ages with the erroneous interpretation of Cainozoic vertebrates as human skeletons, and silicified logs in fluvio-continental deposits as petrified ships (as Steno did).."