Dendy, John schrieb:
> Moreover, no one has apparently asked who "professionally" excavated this
> figurine in 1933. I, for one, would like to see the field notes.  John Dendy
>
according to the dallas article sent by paolo urbani:

Such was the case in 1933, when a Mexican archaeologist named Jose García
Payón unearthed an oddity while digging on a small hill in the Toluca Valley
of central Mexico, about 40 miles west of Mexico City.

> >
> > Hist Arch folk
> >
> > Please look at the story in the New Scientist.
> > It is excerpted in the website "Anthropology in the News" which is run by
> > Texas A & M.  That is the easiest place to find out the nature of the
> > claim.
> >
> >  This is more than a tabloid issue.
> >
> > It is useful to read the story first.
> >
> > Also note that the photo in the New Scientist is misleading  -0- it is NOT
> > the terracotta found.
> >
> > But once you actually read the story, and see what it is about,  you will
> > appreciate that this is going to take a bit more serious work to disprove.
> >
> > So far six people have commented on it, and not one of the six has read
> > the article.  Bad show.
> >
not crazy about the new scientist report (source for my german article): doesn't
say where it was, who dug it up, etc. - the problem of
post-excavation provenience still sounds somewhat fishy, but the dallas article
does make it a bit clearer - and a hell of a lot interesting than the fairly
tabloid, superficial new scientist bit - many thanks paolo -
        i wanted to get some hard info on this, because it did come from a
german copy of... something, was too vague and too cliched to be believed (like
these false virus warnings floating about, like everything barry fell ever tried
to pull off, etc.), and i wanted my german colleagues to be a little more
critical of their sources - someone was hypothesizing on canoes, and someone
else on transatlantic roman colonization of mexico, etc., but... on the basis of
one head, from one (till now) unidentified site, from an unnamed excavator,
etc....
        there are good arguments coming thru the dallas article: should stuff
like this (extraordinary claims) need extraordinary proof? doe we need more than
a head to believe (ie. more than an isolated find, more like something
systematic)?
        interesting problem - and if someone has the cambridge article, i'd like
to read it (but please send it off list!)
        btw: has anyone heard of a roman settlement found on ireland?

geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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