Page "Calaveras Skull" Paragraph 6

Anthropologist William Henry Holmes of the Smithsonian Institution investigated around the turn of the century.

He determined that the plant and animal fossils that had been discovered near the skull were indeed genuine, but the skull was too modern, and concluded that " to suppose that man could have remained unchanged ... for a million years, roughly speaking ... is to suppose a miracle.

" Likewise, J. M. Boutwell, investigating in 1911, was told by one of the participants in the discovery that the whole thing was indeed a hoax.

The miners of the Sierra Nevada apparently did not care much for Whitney (" being an Easterner of very reserved demeanor ") and were " delighted " to have played such a joke on him.

Furthermore, John C. Scribner, a local shopkeeper, claimed to have planted it, and the story was revealed by his sister after his death.

Radiocarbon dating in 1992 established the age of the skull at about 1, 000 years, placing it in the late Holocene age.