A chimpanzee skull in the devil's cave

Hochadel, Oliver

doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2012.11.006

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“…In the case of the La‐Chapelle Neanderthal Sommer (, p. 209) observes, that the skeleton ‘was physically reconstructed in Boule's laboratory, but the newspaper clippings and illustrations can be understood as alternative reconstructions ….’ In many ways the Steinau case resembles the famous Piltdown Hoax in England (Hochadel, , p. 60 with further references), which started to make headlines in late 1912. These parallels go beyond the ‘planting’ of a skull treated to look ancient.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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One Skull and Many Headlines: The Role of the Press in the Steinau Hoax of 1911

Hochadel¹

2016

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In May 1911 a seemingly spectacular discovery from the ‘Devil's Cave’ near Steinau, east of Frankfurt caught the attention of German anthropologists. Soon a debate ensued whether the skull was prehistoric or of a rather more recent age. This controversy nearly exclusively unfolded in the newspapers. It was too brief to materialize in scholarly publications because after 2 months it was revealed that the skull had been ‘planted’ by a prankster. This case shows that the press served as a ‘meta‐medium’ for scholarly disputes, but also points to the crucial material dimension of newspaper articles. The actors wrote many articles themselves but they also observed the press systematically, cut out articles, compiled them, cited them in their letters, glued them into their diaries and passed them on. The newspaper articles were the fuel of the debate and the raw material of knowledge in the making. In the Steinau hoax German anthropologists found themselves in a contradictory position: they were quick to dismiss the press as sensationalist, while at the same time they used the newspapers to voice their own interpretation of the discovery.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…And that was it. The affair ended in August 1911, after less than 3 months of controversy, and was quickly forgotten (for a first factual account see Hochadel, ). Only in the local context the memory was preserved until today (Knobeloch, , , pp.…”

Section: A Hoax In Hessenmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Skull and Many Headlines: The Role of the Press in the Steinau Hoax of 1911

Hochadel¹

2016

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A chimpanzee skull in the devil's cave

Cited by 1 publication

References 1 publication

One Skull and Many Headlines: The Role of the Press in the Steinau Hoax of 1911

One Skull and Many Headlines: The Role of the Press in the Steinau Hoax of 1911

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