---a joke (?) emailed to me, anonymously as usual---------------------

 The story behind the letter below is that there is this nutball
in Newport, RI named Scott Williams who digs things out of his
back yard and sends the stuff he finds to the Smithsonian Institute,
labeling them with scientific names, insisting that they are actual
archaeological finds.  This guy really exists and does this in his
spare time!

 Anyway...here's the actual response from the Smithsonian Institution.
Bear this in mind next time you think you are challenged in your
duty to respond to a difficult situation in writing.
____________________________________________________

                                                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 1956AD, 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


---and a comment from the Pantera mailing list...-------------------------


Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:00:08 +0000
From: Ted Stalcup 
Subject: Re: We're sorry...
Sender: [email protected]

>> B.   Clams don't have teeth.

 Interestingly enough, several of the "giant" clams of the tradacna family
DO have "teeth" in the form of raised spines along the edge of the shell
which they use for defense.  Perhaps there is something to this
proto-hominid theory...-Ted