Obviously fake, since the name is Smithsonian Institution.
Bob Oldham
Exhibit Maintenance Coordinator
Science Museum of Virginia

----------
From:   Susan D.[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Reply To:       Museum discussion list
Sent:   Tuesday, April 28, 1998 12:46 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Curator Humor

I found this elsewhere on the net and thought I would pass it on.  If
any of you know the curator in question, I would love to know if it is
true.  Anyway, it made me laugh, and I thought many of you would enjoy
it also.

First, a little background:

Supposedly, there is a man from Newport, RI, named Scott Williams who
digs things out of his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the
Smithsonian, labeled with scientific names of his own invention.
Williams insists that these artifacts are actual archaeological finds.

The letter below is reputed to be an actual response to him from the
Smithsonian.

  __________________________________________________________________
  Smithsonian Institute 207 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20078

     Dear Mr. Williams:

     Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled
"93211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post... Hominid skull."

     We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and
regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it
represents conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston
County two million years ago.

     Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie
doll, of the variety that one of our staff, who has small children,
believes to be "Malibu Barbie." It is evident that you have given a
great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be
quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in
the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings.
However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of
the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

     1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are
typically fossilized bone.

     2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic
centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified
proto-homonids.

     3. The dentition pattern evident on the skull is more consistent
with the common domesticated dog than it is with the ravenous man-eating
Pliocene clams you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time.

     This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing
hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but
the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going
into too much detail, let us say that:

     A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has
chewed on.

     B. Clams don't have teeth.

     It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your
request to have the specimen carbon-dated. This is partially due to the
heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to
carbon-dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic
record.

     To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior
to 1956 AD, and carbon-dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate
results.

     Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National
Science Foundation Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning
your specimen the scientific name Australopithecus spiff-arino. Speaking
personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your
proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species
name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might
be Latin. However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this
fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a
Hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the
great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly.

     You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in
his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously
submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on
what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have
discovered in your Newport back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to
our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several
of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly
interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the
trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous metal in a structural matrix
that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus Rex femur you recently
discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears
Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

     Yours in Science,
     Harvey Rowe
     Chief Curator-Antiquities