Four Interesting Discovery Hoaxes

The ‘Giant’ was made in Iowa out of Gypsum, and after being transported to New York, a stonecutter was employed to make the statue more humanlike. The giant was buried on a farm belonging to William Newell (Hull’s cousin) at the end of 1868. After a year had passed, Newell ordered the construction of the well.

Most archeological scholars claimed it was fake, but there were some fundamentalist Christians and priests who thought it was genuine. When P. T. Bartum failed to secure a lease for it, he produced his own claiming his was genuine and the Cardiff Giant was fake. On December 10th 1869, Hull admitted that The Cardiff giant was a fake, with both giants being found to be fakes in court in February 1870. Both giants are still on display at the Farmer’s museum in Cooperstown, New York.

The Calaveras Skull

In February 25, 1866 miners in California discovered a skull under a layer of lava, a hundred and thirty feet under the earth’s surface. The skull was passed on from the mine’s owner, James Mattison until it reached Harvard Professor of Geology, J. D. Whitney. At a California Academy of Science meeting, in July 1866, Whitney announced the discovery of the skull as proof that there had been humans in North America during the Pliocene age, which would make it the oldest known human on North America. 

Its authenticity was doubted very soon after its unveiling, with several newspapers claiming it to be a prank played on Whitney. Whitney, however believed it to be true, as did his successor at Harvard, F. W. Putnam who in 1901 tried to prove its authenticity. He heard that a skull had been dug u from a near by Indian Grave in the mid- 1860’s and planted in the mine, to be found later.

When the skull was compared with the descriptions of the skull when it was initially discovered, there were several differences which pointed to it have being switched before Whitney received it. Both skulls were deemed to be too modern to be of Pliocene origin.