Calaveras Skull

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Calaveras Skull, from William Henry Holmes' preliminary debunking of it

The Calaveras Skull was a human skull found by miners in Calaveras County, California,
which was purported to prove that humans, mastodons, and elephants had coexisted in
California. It was later revealed to be a hoax. Coincidentally, "calaveras" is the Spanish word
for "skulls".

History[edit]
On February 25, 1866, miners claimed to have found a human skull in a mine, beneath a
layer of lava, 130 feet (40 m) below the surface of the earth, which made it into the hands
of Josiah Whitney, then the State Geologist of California as well as a Professor of Geology
at Harvard University. A year before the skull came to his attention, Whitney published the
belief that humans, mastodons, and mammoths coexisted;[1] the skull served as proof of his
convictions. After careful study, he officially announced its discovery at a meeting of
the California Academy of Sciences on July 16, 1866, declaring it evidence of the existence
of Pliocene age man in North America, which would make it the oldest known record of
humans on the continent.[2]
Its authenticity was immediately challenged. In 1869 the San Francisco Evening
Bulletin reported that a miner had told a minister that the skull was planted as a practical
joke.[3] Thomas Wilson of Harvard ran a fluorine analysis on it in 1879 (the first ever usage of
such on human bone), with the results indicating it was of recent origin.[4] It was so widely
believed to be a hoax that Bret Harte famously wrote a satirical poem called "To the Pliocene
Skull" in 1899.[5]
Whitney did not waver in his belief that it was genuine. His successor at Harvard, F. W.
Putnam, also believed it to be real. By 1901 Putnam was determined to discover the truth
and he headed to California. While there, he heard a story that in 1865 one of a number of
Indian skulls had been dug up from a nearby burial site and planted in the mine specifically
for miners to find. Putnam still declined to declare the skull a fake, instead conceding, "It may
be impossible ever to determine to the satisfaction of the archaeologist the place where the
skull was actually found."[2] Others, such as adherents of Theosophy, also were unwavering
in their belief in the authenticity of the skull.[3]
To further complicate the issue, careful comparison of the skull with descriptions of it at the
time of its discovery revealed that the skull Whitney had in his possession was not the one
originally found.[2]
Anthropologist William Henry Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution investigated around the
turn of the century. He determined that the plant and animal fossils that had been discovered
near the skull were indeed genuine, but the skull was too modern, and concluded that "to
suppose that man could have remained unchanged... for a million years, roughly speaking...
is to suppose a miracle."[3] Likewise, J. M. Boutwell, investigating in 1911, was told by one of
the participants in the discovery that the whole thing was indeed a hoax.[6] The miners of
the Sierra Nevada apparently did not greatly like Whitney ("being an Easterner of very
reserved demeanor") and were "delighted" to have played such a joke on him.[2] Furthermore,
John C. Scribner, a local shopkeeper, claimed to have planted it, and the story was revealed
by his sister after his death.[7] Radiocarbon dating in 1992 established the age of the skull at
about 1,000 years, placing it in the late Holocene age.[8]
Despite evidence to the contrary, the Calaveras Skull continues to be cited by
some creationists as proof that paleontologists ignore evidence that does not fit their
theories,[9][10] although others have acknowledged that the Calaveras Skull is a hoax.[11]

See also[edit]
 Piltdown Man

References[edit]
Wikisource has the text of

the 1911 Encyclopædia

Britannica article Calaveras Skull.

1. Jump up^ Whitney, J. D. (1865). Geology - Report of progress and synopsis of the field-work from 1860 to 1864. Philadelphia.
p. 252.
2. ^ Jump up to:a b c d "The Calaveras Skull". Museum of Hoaxes. Archived from the original on 2011-06-29. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
3. ^ Jump up to:a b c "The Notorious Calaveras Skull". Archaeology Magazine. Archaeological Institute of America.
2009. Archived from the original on 2011-01-12. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
4. Jump up^ Ian Haywood (1987). "The Missing Link". Faking it: Art and the Politics of Forgery. Harvester. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-
7108-1043-4. Archived from the original on 11 May 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011. (as cited in Blinderman, Charles; Joyce,
David. "The Piltdown Plot". Clark University. Archived from the original on 2010-10-13. Retrieved 2011-02-23.)
5. Jump up^ Conrad, Ernest C. (Spring 1982). "Are There Human Fossils in the "Wrong Place" for
Evolution?". Creation/Evolution Journal. 3 (2). Archived from the original on 2010-03-31. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
6. Jump up^ Heinrich, Paul (June 3, 1996). "The Calaveras Skull Revisited". Talk.Origins. Archived from the original on July 8,
2009. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
7. Jump up^ Weber, Christopher Gregory (Fall 1981). "Paluxy Man — The Creationist Piltdown". Creation/Evolution
Journal. 2 (4). Archived from the original on 2009-12-08. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
8. Jump up^ Taylor, R. E.; Payen, Louis A.; Slota, Peter J., Jr (April 1992). "The Age of the Calaveras Skull: Dating the "Piltdown
Man" of the New World". American Antiquity. 57 (2): 269–275. doi:10.2307/280732. JSTOR 280732.
9. Jump up^ "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood". Center for Scientific Creation. Archived from
the original on 2009-08-31. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
10. Jump up^ Taylor, Ian T. "From Mammal to Man". In the Minds of Men (5th ed.). ISBN 0-9733368-0-3. Archived from the
original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2011-02-24.
11. Jump up^ "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use". Creation Ministries International. Archived from the original on
2008-01-21.