Calaveras Skull
The Calaveras skull is a human skull that was believed by many, in the later part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, to represent the oldest known humankind in North America and was initially dated to the Pliocene. Years later, locals who were involved in creating the hoax helped begin to clear up some of the mystery and confusion that surrounded the skull. This, in conjunction with the help from scientists and researchers, determined that the Calaveras skull was a hoax.
History
The provenance of the Calaveras Skull is one of the aspects of the Calaveras skull that is debated. There are a few main trails of ownership that seem to be the most widely accepted.
Timeline One
The first starts February 25, 1866 when workers for James Mattison removed a skull from a mining shaft in Bald Mountain, Calaveras County, CA. James Mattison then gave the skull to R. C. Scribner who was a merchant and agent for Wells, Fargo and Company at Angel’s Camp. Scribner then passed the skull on to William Jones, a physician at Murphy’s, who, upon receiving the skull, notified J D Whitney, the State Geologist of California and a Professor of geology at Harvard University. The skull was encrusted with sediment so Whitney cleaned the skull with the help of Jefferies Wyman a comparative anatomist at Harvard. Whitney announced the discovery on July 16, 1866 at a meeting of the California Academy of Science [1]
The skull had been found 130 ft below surface and beneath a stratum of lava.
Chemical analysis proved that the skull was fossilized.
Timeline Two
put the info in here eventually
References
MAKE SURE TO FIX THE CITATION SO THAT THINGS ARE ITALICIZED ECT
- ↑ Whitney, J. D. 1867 Notice of a Human Skull Recently Taken From a Shaft Near Angels, Calaveras County. Proceed. Acad. Sci. 3:277-278. Also, Amer. Jour. Sci. 43:265-267. 1880 The Auriferous Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California. Memoirs Mus. Comp. Zool. at Harvard Coll. Mem. 6(No. 1):267-273. http://www.jstor.org.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/stable/279949?pq-origsite=summon&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
- ↑ Dexter, Ralph W. “Historical Aspects of the Calaveras Skull Controversy.” American Antiquity, vol. 51, no. 2, 1986, pp. 365–369. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/279949.