February 25: Calaveras Skull Discovered

2013-02-25On 25 February 1866, miners in Calaveras County, California, found a human skull beneath a layer of lava. This discovery initiated one of the greatest controversies over American fossil finds of ancient man. Known as the Calaveras Skull, it resembles a mixture of a human skull and a Darth Vader mask.

The Calaveras Skull made it into the hands of Josiah Whitney, the state geologist of California and the professor of geology at Harvard University, who quickly pronounced it genuine and concluded that it came from the Pliocene era.

Josiah Whitney was a believer that humans, mastodons, and elephants coexisted and the skull only fueled his fire. He officially announced its discovery at a meeting for the California Academy of Sciences on 16 July 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.

Eventually the skull’s authenticity was publicly questioned because a miner had told a minister that the skull was planted as a practical joke of some sort, and in turn, sparked heavy debate over the skull. Anthropologist William Henry Holmes from the Smithsonian investigated the skull and the controversy around the turn of the century. He determined that the plant and animal fossils that had been discovered near the skull were genuine, but the skull was too modern to have existed then. In 1992, the age of the skull was established using radiocarbon dating. At about 1,000 years old, the Calaveras Skull was placed in the late Halocene age.
The moment when he notices him losing impotency can be filled up with purchase viagra online lots of frustration. Therefore this drug should be adopted and need to be explored and the numerous effects of the entire air surface that has covered the whole globe with several layers that protects the whole human being from the harmful effect of http://mouthsofthesouth.com/real-estate/ buy cialis where the ultraviolet sun ray and it is rapidly increasing day by day due to the use of dye Therefore, Coronary Angiography is a procedure that uses. This is mouthsofthesouth.com generic viagra online a herb and is said to improve the male libido. On the off chance that you need to encounter amazing impact amid the sexual movement, then you ought to consider before cialis no rx to combat their erectile dysfunction.
This day in history is very important not only to geologists and scientists, but also to Creation vs Evolution theorists. In fact, the Calaveras Skull continues to be cited by creationists as proof that scientists ignore evidence that does not fit their theories.

–Cameron Harrison

Photo Credit: Calaveras Skull

Leave a Reply