The Most Humiliating Archeological Bloopers in History

Our world is thousands of years old and there continue to be numerous unanswered questions about the past. Archeologists aim to help make sense of the world around us by leaving no stone unturned. Archeology is difficult and it’s inevitable that some incorrect conclusions have been reached. These misconceptions could be the consequence of an archaeologist's own arrogance, deceptive frauds or simple human error. Here are some of the embarrassing archeological bloopers in history that are sure to make you chuckle while also causing you to reevaluate how much you accept as fact.\r \r 1. The Piltdown Bird\r \r In 1999, the National Geographic Society made some bold statements in National Geographic about their new find. They declared that they had discovered a new bird species in China and had sole access to its fossils. They named it Archaeoraptor lianoningenis and their investigations and testing led them to believe there was a link between dinosaurs and birds. Soon after, a retraction was published in National Geographic and they admitted that their findings were fake. This prestigious organization had been fooled by some Chinese farmers who used the bones from different animals.\r \r 2. Persian Princess\r \r Persian officials acquired a Persian mummy that was offered for sale on the underground market in 2000. Pakistani archeologists shared their find at a press conference. They asserted that it was an Egyptian-style female mummy from around 600 BC and there was suspicion that the mummy was a daughter of King Xerxes I. This was a big deal which sparked a dispute regarding ownership between Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Further testing revealed that the wood used to make the coffin was only 250 years old and the mummy was of a woman in her twenties who had passed away a few years earlier. This led to a homicide inquiry.\r \r 3. The Calaveras Skull\r \r Josiah Whitney was one of the most influential geologists in American History. He got an ancient hominin skull which miners found buried 130 feet under layers of lava. On July 18, 1866 Whitney presented the Calaveras Skull to the world. He asserted that it was a million years old, making it the oldest human remains ever discovered at the time. He wasn’t qualified to make that determination since he was neither an anthropologist nor an archaeologist. Three decades later, it was determined that the skull was fake and it was only 1,000-years-old. The miners played a trick on Whitney.   \r \r 4. The Holly Oak Pendant\r \r In 1889 by Hilborne T. Cresson, an American archaeologist exhibited an antique pendant made of a piece of shell that bore an engraving of a mammoth. He said it was thousands of years old and he had found it twenty-five years before close to the Delaware River but he didn’t think it was valuable at the time. Cresson was dishonest. It was determined that the pendant was fake. The pendant became popular again in the 1970s when claims that it was genuine and was 40,000 years old resurfaced. Radio-carbon dating proved it was just 1,100 years old.\r \r 5. Piltdown Man\r \r In 1912, archeologist Charles Dawson claimed to have found a connection between man and apes when he found skull fragments of an early man which he called Piltdown Man. The skull was reconstructed with the assistance of a paleontologist. There were claims that the fossil belonged to an ancient human progenitor who lived 500,000 years ago. In 1953, it was determined that the Pildown Man was forged by combining human and ape bones. This serves as a reminder of archaeology's limitations.