The Piltdown Hoax

When we think of prehistoric things they may think of things of the past, but with the breakthrough unearthing of the Kennewick Man transformed peoples thought of prehistoric existences. The Kennewick Man or “The Ancient Man” is the name given to the skeletal remains of a man found in Kennewick, Washington on July 28,1996. A pair of bystanders accidentally found the skeleton remains of the Kennewick Man. With the discovery it has brought up many disagreements about what to do with the Kennewick man. The question now is who is really responsible for the remains of the Kennewick Man.

By having requirements to return archaeological findings back to their native tribes entirely, archaeologists are limited in their discoveries and possibly their job. An archaeological discovery is meaningless if it never experiences any practical investigation on whether its characteristics benefit society. For this reason, archaeologists should own the right to keep critically important parts of Kennewick Man’s skull such as his teeth, but return the rest of the skull to the Colville tribe and find an equal compromise. DNA testing should be the first step in deriving information from an archaeological discovery such as a skull, but NAGPRA should give archaeologists the right to keep the most important parts of discoveries for scientific use and then return the remaining parts to the native tribe. In the long run, scientific progress is prevented whenever conflicts emerge over the ownership of archaeological discoveries, therefore Native American tribes should have the courtesy to allow archaeologists to use only specific parts of a specimen and have the remaining parts returned to them if DNA testing comes back positive in relation to their

This article was talking about the uniqueness of the 11th Unnamed Cave and it tries to theorized on how the site was used. The article did a good job of explaining the why there are so many mud balls on the ceilings. The authors tries to show both supporting and disproving that the mud balls were there is because they were used to hunt bats. They also use radio carbon dating to try to get close to the dates that the sites were occupied. The articles showed many hypothesize and they were able to make claims to help them prove their points base of off the evidence that was found at the cites. While there were some good parts of the article there were some that I was questioning. Like how did they see some of the images from the petroglyph because I tried looking it from multiple angle and I was not able to see the images that they were talking about. Also, the there were a conflict between the radio carbon dating dates and the artifacts that was found dates. For example, the carbon dating material said that the time that the cave was used is around the Mississippian period. However, some of the artifacts that was found indicate that there were traces of Early to Middle Woodland people are there. Human behaviors varies and it is very hard to pin-point what something

On July 28, 1996, two young men discovered a skull of a man, which was exposed by erosion, on the bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. The police were called to investigate and that was when the rest of the skeleton was found. This skeleton was soon named “Kennewick Man,” although the Native American Indians referred to the skeleton as “The Ancient One.” According to the Smithsonian’s top physical anthropologist, Doug Owsley, this was one of America’s most important skeletons. It was an exceptionally rare discovery and for its age, it was one of the most complete skeletons ever found. Scientists said it could provide an extraordinary insight into America’s early inhabitants. Doug Owsley says that Kennewick Man is causing scientists to rethink how humans first came to this continent. After a long process of both controversy and scientific research, conclusions were eventually made about the Ancient One about who he was and where he came from.

The first chapter of the book discusses the way we can use fossil records to study the biological world. Fossils are one of the major lines of evidence we use to understand ourselves. Surprisingly, we are able to discover them with a high amount of precision and predictability. In particular, field paleontologists have it easier than it has ever been before due to the current information age. The physical hunt for important fossils, however, is much like it has always been. Three factors limiting the number of useful fossil sites include rock age, type (whether or not it can preserve fossils), and number of exposed rocks. So, it takes a bit of luck to reliably find fossils. Thankfully, rock

For years, it had been widely accepted “that small bands of humans carrying a generalized Upper Paleolithic tool kit entered the Americas around 11,500 radiocarbon years before the present” (Waters 1122); and that “Archaeologists called these presumed pioneers the Clovis culture, after distinctive stone tools that were found at sites near Clovis, New Mexico, in the 1920s and 1930s” (Curry 13). However, the “peopling” of the Americas and their presumptive date of arrival is a topic of great debate within the field of Archeology; and the discovery of the Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon has thrown a wrench in the once widely accepted hypothesis that the “Clovis complex is considered to be the oldest unequivocal evidence of humans in the

In the Article “Redrawing Humanity’s Family Tree” by John Noble Wilford, describes how two different skulls challenge the theories of human origins and migrations. The Central African skull, that dates back to nearly 7 million years ago, was assigned to a whole new genus and species because of its apelike and evolved hominid species. The 1.75-million-year-old Georgian skull shows evidence that the first hominids may have been intercontinental travelers who set motion the migrations that occupied the whole planet. Finally a third skull was found that is the same age and shares a resemblance but, the size of the skull suggests that the brain was smaller than expected for H. erectus.

Discoveries relating to the human lineage are extremely exciting and often baffling. This is the case with the recent discovery of what seems to be the oldest member of the human family. A skull found in northern Chad in 2001, has been deemed the earliest relative to the human ever found. Nicknamed Toumai, and discovered by Michel Brunet and his paleontology team, this new category of human has been given the scientific name, Sahelanthropus tchaensis. What makes this skull so definitive is the fact that it dates back approximately 6-7 million years in the earth’s history (Whitfield 2002). Since the discovery there have been anthropologists and paleontologists that have

An antiquated lance held up in a mastodon has demonstrated people populated North America 1,000 years sooner than beforehand suspected, it was asserted today. Researchers have now precisely cell based dated the sharp tip, itself cut from mastodon bone, 30 years after it was found in the U.S. condition of Washington. It was implanted in a rib from one of the animals, a goliath relative of the elephant and wooly mammoth, and after a long hold up specialists have said that the bone and lance point are both around 13,800 years of age.

I decided to use the term "missing link" simply because around that time, scientists believed Piltdown man was, in fact, the "missing link" to our lineage from which we evolved. I did not use it because I believe it is an accurate depiction of the primate lineage. The faults which persuaded the perpetrator, or perpetrators, would depend on who was the one behind the Piltdown hoax. For instance, years later after Piltdown man was exposed as a hoax, a trunk with Martin A. C. Hilton's initials were found in the attic of the Natural History Museum after his passing. In in they discovered bones with carvings and stains similar to those of Piltdown man. Martin A. C. Hilton was known to not be very fond of Charles Dawson, his drive. Charles Dawson,

Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years.  Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens.  Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.”  What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.

The discovery of the remains of an apparently miniature hominin species (catalogued as Lb1) on the island of Flores has sparked debate throughout the archaeological community. This species of hominin is unique in a number of aspects and appears contradictory to trends in archaeological evidence and theories about the development of modern humans in that area of the world.

The Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) is a collection of "fossils" of a human skull.They were found several years ago included a mandible and set of teeth, parts of a human-like skull and a canine tooth. In 1912, Piltdown Man was introduced by Woodward and Dawson to the scientific community. By the early 20th century, from the evolutionary theory, it was predicted that it was a "missing link” that prove that the ape-like jaw belonged with the human-like skull.

“Forbidden archeology” is the terminology used to describe the alternative theories that are held against mainstream science in regards to human origins and the history of both us and our ancestors. Within forbidden archeology is scientist and specialist on the subject Cremo, who suggests that there is adequate proof that modern man did not evolve as previously thought from

       In the article, "Natural History of Homo erectus" by Susan C. Antón discussed our view of H. erectus is different today than when Pithecanthropus erectus, then only the second fossil hominin taxon to be discovered, was described by Dubois (1894) (Antón, C. Susan, 162). H. erectus was the most primitive and smallest-brained of the fossil hominins (Antón, C. Susan, 162). Therefore, early observations expended significant effort showing that the Indonesian fossils from Trinil were actually hominins (Antón, C. Susan, 162). Thus, it took the dismissal of Piltdown and the broad acceptance of Australopithecus as a hominin ancestor, along with the substantial Asian