Out-of-place artifact

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Fragment of the Antikythera mechanism, a mechanical computer from the 2nd century BCE showing a previously unknown level of complexity

An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest found in an unusual context, which challenges conventional historical chronology by its presence in that context. Such artifacts may appear "too advanced" for the technology known to have existed at the time, or may suggest human presence at a time before humans are known to have existed. Other examples may suggest contact between different cultures that is hard to account for with conventional historical understanding.

The term is used in fringe science such as cryptozoology, as well as by proponents of ancient astronaut theories, young Earth creationists, and paranormal enthusiasts.[1][2] It can describe a wide variety of objects, from anomalies studied by mainstream science to pseudoarchaeology to objects that have been shown to be hoaxes or to have mundane explanations.

Critics argue that most purported OOPArts which are not hoaxes are the result of mistaken interpretation and wishful thinking, such as a mistaken belief that a particular culture could not have created an artifact or technology due to a lack of knowledge or materials. In some cases, the uncertainty results from inaccurate descriptions. For example, the cuboid Wolfsegg Iron is not really a perfect cube, nor are the Klerksdorp spheres actual perfect spheres. The Iron pillar of Delhi was said to be "rust proof", but it has some rust near its base; its relative resistance to corrosion is due to slag inclusions left over from the manufacturing conditions and environmental factors.[3]

Supporters regard OOPArts as evidence that mainstream science is overlooking huge areas of knowledge, either willfully or through ignorance.[2] Many writers or researchers who question conventional views of human history have used purported OOPArts in attempts to bolster their arguments.[2] Creation science often relies on allegedly anomalous finds in the archaeological record to challenge scientific chronologies and models of human evolution.[4] Claimed OOPArts have been used to support religious descriptions of prehistory, ancient astronaut theories, and the notion of vanished civilizations that possessed knowledge or technology more advanced than that known in modern times.[2]

Examples[]

The following are examples of objects that have been argued by various fringe authors (see list) to be out-of-place artifacts.

Unusual artifacts[]

  • Antikythera mechanism: A form of mechanical computer created between 150 and 100 BCE based on theories of astronomy and mathematics believed to have been developed by the ancient Greeks. Its design and workmanship reflect a previously unknown, but not implausible, degree of sophistication.[5][6]
The Shroud of Turin: modern photo of the face, positive left, digitally processed negative image right
  • Maine penny: An 11th-century Norwegian coin found in a Native American shell midden at the Goddard Site in Brooklin, Maine, United States, which some authors have argued is evidence of direct contact between Vikings and Native Americans in Maine. The coin need not imply actual exploration of Maine by the Vikings, however; mainstream belief is that it was brought to Maine from Labrador or Newfoundland (where Vikings are known to have established colonies as early as the late 10th century) via an extensive northern trade network operated by indigenous peoples.[7] If Vikings did indeed visit Maine, a much greater number and variety of Viking artifacts might be expected in the archaeological record there. Of the nearly 20,000 objects found over a 15-year period at the Goddard Site, the coin was the sole non-native artifact.[8]
  • The Shroud of Turin contains an image that resembles a sepia photographic negative. Some claim the image depicts Jesus of Nazareth and the fabric is the burial shroud in which he was wrapped after crucifixion. It is much clearer when it is converted to a positive image. The actual method that resulted in this image has not yet been conclusively identified. Mention of the shroud first appeared in historical records in 1357. In 1988, radiocarbon dating established that the shroud was from the Middle Ages, between the years 1260 and 1390.[9] All hypotheses put forward to challenge the radiocarbon dating have been scientifically refuted,[10] including the medieval repair hypothesis,[11][12][13] the bio-contamination hypothesis[14] and the carbon monoxide hypothesis.[15]
The Tamil Bell is a broken bronze bell used as a cooking pot by Māori women of New Zealand.
  • The Tamil Bell is a broken bronze bell with an inscription of old Tamil. The bell is a mystery due to its discovery in New Zealand by a missionary. Although nobody knows for certain how the bell came to New Zealand, one possible theory is that it was dropped off by Portuguese sailors who had acquired it from Tamil traders. Prior to being discovered by the missionary, local Maori had used it as a cooking pot. Given that it was supposedly discovered generations earlier, the artifact's exact origins could not be identified. The bell is now located at the National Museum of New Zealand.[16]

Questionable interpretations[]

The three components of the Baghdad Battery
  • Baghdad Battery: A ceramic vase, a copper tube, and an iron rod made in Parthian or Sassanid Persia. Fringe theorists have hypothesized that it may have been used as a galvanic cell for electroplating, though no electroplated artifacts from this era have been found.[17][18] The "battery" strongly resembles another type of object with a known purpose – storage vessels for sacred scrolls from nearby Seleucia on the Tigris.[19]
  • Dorchester Pot: A metal pot claimed to have been blasted out of solid rock in 1852. Mainstream commentators identify it as a Victorian-era candlestick or pipe holder.[20][21]
  • Kensington Runestone: A runestone unearthed in 1898 in Kensington, Minnesota, entangled in the roots of a tree. Runologists have dismissed the inscription's authenticity on linguistic evidence, while geologists disagree as to whether the stone shows weathering that would indicate a medieval date.[22]
  • Kingoodie artifact: An object resembling a corroded nail, said to have been encased in solid rock. It was handled a number of times before being reported and there are no photographs of it.[23][24]
  • Lake Winnipesaukee mystery stone: Originally thought to be a record of a treaty between tribes, subsequent analysis has called its authenticity into question.[25][26]
  • Sivatherium of Kish: An ornamental war chariot figurine discovered in the Sumerian ruins of Kish, in what is now central Iraq, in 1928. The figurine, dated to the Early Dynastic I period (2800–2750 BCE), depicts a quadrupedal mammal with branched horns, a nose ring, and a rope tied to the ring. Because of the shape of the horns, Edwin Colbert identified it in 1936 as a depiction of a late-surviving, possibly domesticated Sivatherium, a vaguely moose-like relative of the giraffe that lived in North Africa and India during the Pleistocene but was believed to have become extinct early in the Holocene extinction event.[27] Henry Field and Berthold Laufer instead argued that it represented a captive Persian fallow deer and that the antlers had broken over the years. The missing antlers were found in the Field Museum's storeroom in 1977.[28] After restoration in 1985, it was conclusively identified as a depiction of a Caspian red deer (Cervus elaphus maral).[29]
  • Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head: A terracotta offering head seemingly of Roman appearance found beneath three intact floors of a burial site in Mexico and dated between 1476 and 1510. There are disputed claims that its dating is older. Ancient Roman or Norse provenance has not been excluded.[30][31]

Alternative interpretations[]

Natural objects mistaken for artifacts[]

Erroneously dated objects[]

Modern-day creations, forgeries and hoaxes[]

An Ica stone depicting dinosaurs
  • Babylonokia: A clay tablet shaped like a mobile phone and created as an artwork in 2012. Fringe scientists and alternative archaeology proponents subsequently misrepresented a photograph of the artwork as showing an 800-year-old archaeological find. The story was popularised in a video on the YouTube channel Paranormal Crucible and led to the object being reported by some press sources as a mystery.
  • Acámbaro figures: Mid-20th century figurines of dinosaurs, attributed by Waldemar Julsrud to an ancient society.
  • Calaveras Skull: A human skull found by miners in Calaveras County, California, which was purported to prove that humans, mastodons, and elephants had coexisted in prehistoric California. It was later revealed to be a hoax.
  • Cardiff Giant: A 19th-century hoax of a ten-foot-tall supposedly petrified man exhibited as a giant from biblical times. Quickly debunked by experts, it was nonetheless a popular marvel of the day.[45]
  • Crystal skulls: Supposedly demonstrate more advanced stone-cutting skill than was previously known from pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Appear to have been made in the 19th century.
  • Gosford Glyphs: A collection of Egyptian hieroglyphs in Central Coast, Australia, that have been dismissed as a hoax by authorities and academics after their discovery in the 1970s.
  • Ica stones: Depict Inca dinosaur-hunters, surgery, and other modern or fanciful topics. Collected by Javier Cabrera Darquea, who claimed them to be prehistoric.
  • Japanese Paleolithic hoax: Perpetrated by discredited amateur archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura.
  • Los Lunas Decalogue Stone: Supposedly made by pre-Columbian Israelite visitors to the Americas. Generally believed to be a modern-day hoax.
  • Michigan relics: Supposedly ancient artifacts which have been alleged as proof that people of an ancient Near Eastern culture had lived in the U.S. state of Michigan; they are archaeological forgeries.
  • Piltdown Man: Supposedly skull parts from a "missing link" hominid, but exposed as an elaborate hoax 41 years after its "discovery".
  • Tucson artifacts: Thirty-one lead objects that Charles E. Manier and his family found in 1924 near Picture Rocks, Arizona, which were initially thought by some to be created by early Mediterranean civilizations that had crossed the Atlantic in the first century, but were later determined to be a hoax.

Entirely fictional[]

See also[]

Authors and works[]

References[]

  1. ^ Benjamin B. Olshin (2019). Lost Knowledge: The Concept of Vanished Technologies and Other Human Histories. Brill. pp. 353–. ISBN 978-90-04-35272-8.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c d O'Hehir, Andrew (August 31, 2005). "Archaeology from the dark side". Salon.com. Retrieved 19 April 2010.
  3. ^ R. Balasubramaniam (2001). "New Insights on the Corrosion Resistant Delhi Iron Pillar". In Rao, Ramachandra Patcha; Goswami, Nani Gopal (eds.). Metallurgy in India: a retrospective (PDF). India International Publisher. pp. 104–133.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Stromberg, P, and PV Heinrich (2004) The Coso Artifact Mystery from the Depths of Time? Archived 2007-12-14 at the Wayback Machine, Reports of the National Center for Science Education. 24(2):26–30 (March/April 2004) Retrieved March 8, 2014.
  5. ^ "The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project Archived 2008-04-28 at the Wayback Machine", The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project. Retrieved 2007-07-01 Quote: "The Antikythera Mechanism is now understood to be dedicated to astronomical phenomena and operates as a complex mechanical "computer" which tracks the cycles of the Solar System."
  6. ^ Paphitis, Nicholas (December 1, 2006). "Experts: Fragments an Ancient Computer". The Washington Post. Athens, Greece. Imagine tossing a top-notch laptop into the sea, leaving scientists from a foreign culture to scratch their heads over its corroded remains centuries later. A Roman shipmaster inadvertently did something just like it 2,000 years ago off southern Greece, experts said late Thursday.
  7. ^ "Vinland Archeology". Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 2011-08-24.
  8. ^ "Bye, Columbus". Time. December 11, 1978. Archived from the original on October 27, 2007.
  9. ^ Taylor, R.E. and Bar-Yosef, Ofer. Radiocarbon Dating, Second Edition: An Archaeological Perspective. Left Coast Press, 2014, p. 165.
  10. ^ Radiocarbon Dating, Second Edition: An Archaeological Perspective, By R.E. Taylor, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Routledge 2016; pp. 167–168.
  11. ^ R. A. Freer-Waters, A. J. T. Jull, "Investigating a Dated piece of the Shroud of Turin", Radiocarbon 52, 2010, pp. 1521–1527.
  12. ^ Schafersman, Steven D. (14 March 2005). "A Skeptical Response to Studies on the Radiocarbon Sample from the Shroud of Turin by Raymond N. Rogers". llanoestacado.org. Retrieved 2 January 2016.Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190316020316/http://llanoestacado.org/freeinquiry/skeptic/shroud/articles/rogers-ta-response.htm |date=16 March 2019}}
  13. ^ The Shroud, by Ian Wilson; Random House, 2010, pp. 130–131.
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  17. ^ Von Handorf, DE, and DE Crotty (2002) The Baghdad battery – myth or reality? Plating and Surface Finishing. vol. 89, no. 5, pp. 84–87.
  18. ^ Flatow, I (2012) Archaeologists Revisit Iraq. interview with Elizabeth Stone, Talk of the Nation, National Public Radio. Washington, DC.
  19. ^ Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews (26 December 2009). "The batteries of Babylon: evidence for ancient electricity?". Bad Archaeology. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
  20. ^ Steiger, B. (1979) Worlds Before Our Own. New York, New York, Berkley Publishing Group. 236 pp. ISBN 978-1-933665-19-1
  21. ^ Fitzpatrick-Matthews, K, and J Doeser (2007) Metallic vase from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Bad Archaeology.
  22. ^ "Calcite Weathering and the Age of the Kensington Rune Stone Inscription (Lightning Post)". Andy White Anthropology. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  23. ^ Sir David, B (1854) Queries and Statements concerning a Nail found imbedded in a Block of Sandstone obtained from Kingoodie (Mylnfield) Quarry, North Britain. Report of the Fourteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science vol. 51, John Murray London.
  24. ^ Fitzpatrick-Matthews, K, and J Doeser (2007) A nail in Devonian sandstone from Kingoodie, Scotland. Bad Archaeology.
  25. ^ anonymous (nd) The Mystery Stone. Archived 2010-09-14 at the Wayback Machine Museum Exhibits, New Hampshire Historical Society, Concord, New Hampshire.
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