While digging through old computer files for whatever reason, I came across this piece that was floating around the e-mail-o-sphere several years ago (in the ancient dial-up days). It may have originated from the University of Maryland, and contains a very funny letter from the Smithsonian's Curator of Antiquities - read on:

Ok, the story behind this... There's this wacked out guy who digs thingsout of his backyard and sends the stuff he finds to the SmithsonianInstitute, labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they areactual archaeological finds. The really weird thing about these letters isthat this guy really exists and does this in his spare time!

Anyway... here's the letter from the Smithsonian Institution after he sentthem a Barbie doll head.

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled"211-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 itrepresents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man inCharleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears thatwhat you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the varietyone of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the"Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quitecertain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work inthe 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 it's modernorigin:

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

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

3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is moreconsistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed thewetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly oneof the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in yourhistory with this institution, but the evidence seems to weighrather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail,let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie dollthat a dog has chewed on.
B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny yourrequest to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially dueto the heavy load our lab must bear in it's normal operation, andpartly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils ofrecent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbiedolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likelyto produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also denyyour request that we approach the National Science Foundation'sPhylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimenthe scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speakingpersonally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because thespecies name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really soundlike it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of thisfascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not ahominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting exampleof the great body of work you seem to accumulate here soeffortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved aspecial shelf in his own office for the display of the specimensyou have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entirestaff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in yourdigs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. Weeagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that youproposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing theDirector to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearingyou expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positatingfillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makesthe excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recentlydiscovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm SearsCraftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities