Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
When a group of miners uncovered a skull deep in a mine shaft on the western slopes of Bald Mountain near a gold mining camp called Angels Camp in Calaveras County, California, it was believed, at least initially, to be a history changing discovery. The owner of the mine, Illinois born blacksmith James Mattinson, had originally gone west during the California Gold Rush.
He had little to no luck finding gold or any other precious metals or anything really, and it said that Mattinson didn't know at first what it was that he'd dug up that day in February of eighteen sixty six. It was when the skull was sent to the state geologist of California, J. D. Whitney, who was also a professor of geology at Harvard Universe when things went a bit bonkers. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarchy and.
I'm Holly Fry. Mattinson had first showed the fossil to a local man who lived in the mining town, and he in turn brought it to an Angel's camp merchant named Philip Scribner. Scribner recognized that it was a human skull, and he cleaned it up and sent it off to physician and natural history buff doctor William Jones, who, although we aren't one hundred percent sure, likely lived in nearby San Francisco. Jones was blown away by the potential of the discovery, and he was the one who sent the
skull to J. D. Whitney. Upon examining this skull, Whitney determined that it was an amazing find. He believed that it belonged to a ply a scene age man, which would have made it the oldest known record of human existence in North America. And that wasn't the only thing. It also suggests that humans had lived in the Americas for much longer than scientists had previously thought.
Let's take a minute for a bit of science and history to get our bearings on this time frame. The Pliocene is the epic of geologic time scale that extends from roughly five point four million to two point four million years ago. Today, most scientists recognize some fifteen to twenty different species of early humans, though there is disagreement about how those species are related. As well as which
ones just died out over time. Fossils of the first known hominids or human like primates, who lived between six million and two million years ago, universally come from the African continent. It's believed that early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between two million and one point eight million years ago, and there's no evidence of humans in Europe until between one point five million and one million years ago. It took even more time for
humans to populate the rest of the world. When it comes to the Americas, there's no evidence there were humans there until the past thirty thousand years or so. So a Haminid skull dating to the Pla saying that was both exciting and a bit of a scandalous announcement.
Whitney didn't just examine the skull, though. He went to Angel's camp, he visited the mine, and he spoke with both Mattinson and Scribner. The men explained that Mattinson dug up the skull in his mind, and though he originally thought it was probably nothing more than a tree route, when it was cleaned up at Scrubner's store, everyone realized it was a skull, and that's when they brought in
doctor Jones for his counsel and advice. It's reported that Whitney believed both Mattinson and Scribner were being truthful, and he carried on with his investigative work. He concluded that the skull was authentic and that it dated the Pliocene epoch. That was definitely a stretch, but at the time it was almost kind of, sort of within reason to make that leap. Separate from this find. Others had claimed to have found ancient stone tools like mortars and pestles under
the hills of Calaveras County. Those finds opened up the possibility of that older age. The tools, and now the skull, it was thought, could change what experts thought about human evolution and in particular in North America.
On July eighteenth, eighteen sixty six, Whitney presented a paper to the California Academy of Natural Sciences describing the skull, explaining it had been recently found in Calaveras County. He described his discovery in a mine shaft at a depth of one hundred and thirty feet. It had been found in oriiferous gravel deposits of a Pliocene river that had
been buried beneath million year old volcanic deposits. The San Francisco Alta summed up with Beney's talk the following day, reporting quote, the skull is therefore not only the earliest pioneer of this state, but the oldest known human being. It is scarcely necessary to say that the announcement and remarks of Professor Whitney made a profound sensation at the Academy.
He later exhibited the skull in August of eighteen sixty eight at the Chicago meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors, and when we return, we will talk about how there's always a butt.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the debate over whether or not the skull was real and if it was really as old as some people thought.
So many of our stories that we've told have a moment where we have to talk about something that sounds incredibly cool or interesting, and then we have to follow it up with butt. All right, So here's the butt for this one. Some scholars challenged the authenticity of the skull while others did not, and it started a controversy between those who insisted the skull had been planted at
the mine and those who insisted it was genuine. An article in the Harvard Register reported that the Calaveras skull quote has been mercilessly assailed as a hoax, not on account of any suspicious circumstances attending its discovery, but because it was predetermined in the minds of many that man did not live at so ancient a time. The skull looked others believed like it belonged to a human from centuries earlier, probably from an indigenous tribe now referred to
as the Northern Sierra Miwok. Some assumed that that's what it probably was. Prominent geologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists from several universities examined the skull, but it actually took many decades before the skull was decisively determined to be a fake.
Scientists were concerned that the artifact had been removed before anyone with any kind of reputable authority could examine it in the ground where it was found, but that wasn't the only problem. There was a lot of disagreement within the scientific community some people assumed it was the result of an unfortunate mining accident. Skeptics also believed the skull was just too modern to come from the Pliocene Age. Some scholars believed it was just a practical joke played by miners.
Whitney took the skull to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, d C. Where archaeologist William H. Holmes examined it, and Holmes was well it was not on board with the idea that this was a genuine find. In his analysis, he had discovered that the sediment embedded in it, it turned out, couldn't have come from the mind deposit. When the skull was exhumed, it was still partially encased in
the material in which it was found. Loose sediment had been brushed away by Scribner, and in that material Holmes found bones, a shell bed that resembled those made by indigenous peoples, and a snail shell from a modern type of snail. Whitney had thought that the skull had bounced along an ancient Pliocene river, where it must have settled in sediments containing these tidbits. Holmes disagreed to him and
to other experts. The findings suggested that the skull had come from somewhere else and been put in the mind. He concluded that quote, it thus appears that the so called Calivera's skull exhibits nothing in its character, condition, or associated phenomena incompatible with the theory of recent origin, and very much that may be justly construed as favoring that theory.
By eighteen sixty nine, skepticism was spread. A mister Blakesley wrote in an edition of the San Francisco bulletin that year, quote, we believe the whole story worthy of no scientific credence. A minister told us the miners freely told him that
the whole affair was a joke. Despite the critics and the stories, Whitney continued to believe it was a genuine find, and by the eighteen nineties many in the academic community continued to accept it as genuine, but it was becoming more and more obvious among scientists that it really just
didn't fit into the fossil record of human evolution. In nineteen oh one, F. W. Putnam, who had replaced Whitney at Harvard, visited California and learned that In eighteen sixty five, a number of indigenous skulls had been dug up from a nearby tribal burial site, and that skulls had been planted in the Bald Mountain mine. Putnam concluded, quote, it may be impossible, ever to determine, to the satisfaction of the archaeologist, the place where the skull was actually found.
So this is a good time to talk about something that's been the creeping supporting character in this entire forgery season, and that's confirmation bias. In the twenty twenty two edition of Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, authors Caleb W. Lac and Jacques Rousseau describe confirmation bias in the chapter Mental Health, pop Psychology, and the Misunderstanding of Clinical Psychology, and their description of
confirmation bias reads as follows quote. It is the tendency of individuals to favor information that confirms their beliefs or ideas and discount that which does not. This means that, when confronted with new information, we tend to do one of two things. If this information confirms what we already believe, our natural instinct is to accept it as true, accurate,
and unbiased. We unreservedly accept it and are happy to have been shown it, even if it has some problems, we forgive and forget those incorporate this new information into our beliefs and schemas quickly. We are also more likely to recall this information leader to help buttress our belief during an argument. On the other hand, if this newly encountered information contradicts what we already believe, we have a
very natural different response. We become highly critical and defensive, immediately nitpicking any possible flaw in the information, even though the same flaw would be ignored if the information confirmed our beliefs. It also fades quickly from our mind, so that in the future we cannot even recall being exposed to it.
We have seen this bias at play over and over again, from art experts who want to think they found a previously unknown work by a particular artist, or in a buyer who doesn't want to believe they've been duped. Psychological bias is a powerful thing, so powerful that it can override actual knowledge that would contradict what someone wants to believe to us and maybe to you too. This seems to have been at play for J. D. Whitney, and he wasn't the only one.
We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back we will talk about how hard it was to convince even some experts that the skull was just not what they hoped.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about just how long it took for experts to agree the skull was fake, and how the whole thing was actually a practical joke gone too far.
Decades after first examining the skull, Holmes, feeling unsure about its age and providence, traveled to Calaveras to investigate further. He read all of Whitney's reports, which included a description of the skull. He examined the plant and animal thought
bustle supposedly found in the sediment on the skull. He wrote of the scene, quote, to suppose that man could have remained unchanged physically, To suppose that he could have remained unchanged mentally, socially, industrially, and esthetically for a million years,
roughly speaking, is to suppose a miracle. To suppose again, that the ancient people disappeared as a result of nature's mutations, leaving their bones and handiwork, and that another people springing up or appearing on the same spot in recent years, have duplicated each and every character, activity and art form is to suppose the impossible.
Holmes also spoke with George Stickle, a resident of Angels Camp and Scribner associate. Stickkell stated that the skull had come from an indigenous burial place in Salt Spring Valley, which was located west of Angels Camp. He claimed it was removed by doctor William Kelly, who gave it to Scribner, who originally thought it would make a fun gag gift to doctor Jones.
Holmes was now certain that the skull had been placed in the mine, but he just couldn't verify it. Scribner and Jones had both died in eighteen ninety eight. It's actually pretty difficult to find a primary account of what occurred. But Holmes heard the same tale again and again from locals who had been there at the time, and that story that they told was this. It was Scribner who was the architect of the prank, along with a few
accomplices who were all friends of doctor Jones. Mattinson was the sucker that they counted on to find the skull that they'd planted, which he did, and they bet that he would kick off a chain of events that would get it into Jones's hands. He was the real target of the prank, and Mattinson also did that.
When the skull arrived, Jones initially thought that it was a practical joke, and really he should have trusted his gut here. According to innkeeper jail spare Mary, Jones first threw the skull into this street, yelling about how quote the skull had been brought to him as a relic of great antiquity, but he had just discovered cobwebs in it and concluded that he had been made the subject
of one of Scribner's practical jokes. But then he had second thoughts about it and presumably retrieved it from the street. Never intended as anything more than a prank, the skull ended up being discussed as a genuine Clyti scene fossil, first by Jones, then by Whitney.
At the turn of the century. And yet despite all these revelations that indicated the tomfoolery of the whole setup, the skull continued to have defenders. The more experts learned about it, though the more out of place it seemed. It took several decades of debate before it was concluded to be faked. Radiocarbon analysis known also as carbon dating, was conducted on the skull in nineteen ninety two, so quite a while after the whole thing started, and results
indicated it likely came from the Late Holocene Age. The Holocene is the current geological epic in Earth's history. This skull ultimately is estimated to be about one thousand years old, and that aligns with Holmes's conclusion made years earlier.
Nearly a century later, Ralph Dexter of the Department of Biological Sciences at Kent State University concluded of the skull and its controversy, quote, the desire on the part of miners to play a practical joke, the anxiety of archaeologists to prove the existence of early humankind in North America, and the firm convictions and good faith of those involved in an honest mistake led to this long drawn out controversy,
unique in the annals of American archaeology. The skull disappeared from discussion.
Are you ready for a little something to drink while we contemplate this whole skull story?
I am. Can you believe how many decades. That's it. Yes, actually I can't you.
And that's kind of the inspiration for today's drink, which is called confirmation bias, because it really is a thing where people will just dig in and they want something to be true so bad. So I at least wanted something to be super delicious and have not the flavor of the drink that it's a look alike for, but have a little bit of the same quality. And I'll explain as we go. This one is a small drink. One of those drinks is not diluted with anything, so
it is very spirit forward. But it is going to start with a half ounce of unsweetened cranberry juice, a splash of agave syrup, a quarter ounce of vanilla liqueur, so not a whole lot, and then an ounce and a half of dark rum. And you're going to put these into a mixing glass with ice and then stir it to combine it. If you are a drink person, you may already know what we're making a copy of,
because that's how the original is also made. You're going to strain that into a cocktail glass that's pre chilled. I love a Nick and Nora glass for this. One, which are those smaller volume they're really cute and perfect. And then you're gonna garnish it with a cranberry that has been soaked in a gave or brown sugar syrup for just a little while. You just need a coating on it because it looks like a Manhattan.
It does, yeah, I.
Know, And a Manhattan is not dark, round, sweet, vermooth bourbon and usually samangaster a bitters, so it's also very spirit forward. It also is stirred in a mixing glass instead of in a shaker or anything. I also wanted. I was just fascinated by this idea of the dirt and so I wanted a brown drink. I knew this one is definitely on the reddish side of brown, so that's what led me down this path. But the thing is,
when you drink it, it is like a Manhattan. It doesn't taste like one at all, but it has a similar effect psychologically, which is that you're like, Wow, this is a strong drink, but it's also pretty tasty because sometimes when you say wow, this is a strong drink, you're not tasting anything but spirit writing yes, whereas a Manhattan, if it's made well, you taste the spirit, but you you know that that sweet vermouth and that little bit of like a luxado cherry usually gives it that little
bit of sweetness that smooths out the rough edges, and so you taste the flavors and you're not just like, wow, that's alcohol. And I will say my one taste tester agreed, not a big drinker, not a fan of drinks that taste like alcohol. And he said, this is interesting because I can taste that it's very spirit forward. But I don't mind this at all when I was there.
Interesting from him.
Yes, if you want to make the mocktail of this, it's really easy. You're gonna make everything the same, except instead of vanilla li cure, you'll use a vanilla syrup, and instead of dark rum, you're gonna make your favorite dark like a black tea that has whatever spices you love, whether it is a tea that comes spiced, or you like to make your own black tea and then spice it up with a little nutmeg and cardamom, or I'd like to put a little pumpkin pie spice in tea.
It gets super yummy, I know. But we're in the holiday scenes. It's appropriate. Yes, it's appropriate for me year round, but you can also you know, if you're seasonal that way, this should be great and that actually makes a really yummy drink. I actually made one version with a vanilla tea that I had on hand, and that was quite tasty, but definitely a little on the more deserty roundy side. And then I made one with a black tea that I had added an assortment of things too, also very good,
but just a slightly different flavor profile. So experiment, find what you like. Because remember, there's no such thing as cocktail jail. You just want to make the cocktails and mocktails. It taste most delicious to you, so tweak any recipe, however you need to make it super yummy. In this case, if it's two spirit forward, add a little more agave syrup, add a little more cranberry juice. Although if you're doing the unsweetened it has its own bite, so you got
to be a little careful with that. But you can tweak and see what you like. I'm a big fan of the taste tests. Go what does this need? This is how you develop your skills as your home bartender, where you know exactly how to make exactly what you love and what's better than that. We are so grateful that you hang out with us to experiment with these cocktails and hear stories of assorted strange things, including a
lot of confirmation bias. We will be right back here next week with a little more of that and another cocktail. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.