ANTH question

Archaeological Hoaxes

Recap

• In archaeology (and life), context is everything

•Science is slow, gradual, cumulative

•Science is hard, fiction is easy

The Nacirema

• Nacirema = American

•Make the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic

Rules of Hoaxing (Feder):

• Give them what they want o Confirmation bias

o Context is key (mid-19th-early 20th centuries)

• Don’t be too successful

• Learn from your mistakes

Confirmation bias

Archaeological Hoaxes:

The Cardiff Giant

October-December 1869

Cultural Context:

“The Second Great Awakening”

“Burned Over District”, NY

Cultural Context: Bible as Historical

Issue in Scientific Thinking:

“Theory influences observation”

AKA: Confirmation bias

Discovery: October 16, 1869

William “Stubb” Newell Farm

(Cardiff, NY)

Theory and Science Combine to

Create Pseudoscientific Explanation

Petrification: - bones - wood - NOT skin and muscle

An Economic Opportunity

"The roads were crowded with buggies, carriages, and even omnibuses from the city, and with lumber-wagons from the farms--all laden with passengers."

Some Significant Numbers…

• First week of exhibition: $7000 ($132,000)

• Investors’ stake ¾ share: $37,000 ($701,000)

• 25-50 cents/person ($10-20 today) : 300-500 people daily

P.T. Barnum makes an offer…

$60,000 = $1.1 million today!

"There's a sucker born every minute.“ - David Hannum, partial owner of the Cardiff Giant

The Move to Syracuse

Rumors

Othniel C. Marsh

(1831-1899)

John F. Boynton

(1811-1890)

Experts Weigh In

“It is positively absurd to consider this a fossil man.” – Boynton, 1869

“It is of very recent origin, and a most decided humbug…”

– Marsh, 1869

George Hull’s Confession (Dec. 1869): A Hoax 3 years in the Making

Why they did it, why people believed it

Belief/faith Confirmation bias

What do people believe today and why?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= hvl0Ee3yvDw

Recent “Giant” Hoaxes

https://www.designcrowd.com/community/?search=archaeological

Lack of scientific knowledge

Why they did it, why people believed it

Big Foot: Another American Giant

Cryptozoologists - pseudoscience focusing on proving the existence of “animals” from folklore

Distribution of reported Bigfoot sightings in the United States and Canada

Prominent Sightings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us6jo8bl2lk

Crew and Wallace

(1958)

Gimlin and Patterson

(1967)

Scientific Facts Regarding

the Existence of Bigfoot

• Aside from hoaxers, no actual evidence

• Apes do not inhabit temperate climates

• No fossils of apes in North America

• Breeding population would create

more sightings

DNA Studies

Bigfoot: A Watershed in Pseudoscience

The Piltdown Hoax (1912-1949)

The Piltdown Hoax (1912-1949)

•Watch the BBC video on Panopto

•Read Chapter 4 of your textbook

•Let’s discuss!

Class Project 3

•Find and discuss 2 archaeological hoaxes

•Find and discuss 1 non-archaeological hoax