Anthropologist stumbles over faked skulls
An incredible affair of faked skulls has found its inglorious end at a district court in Frankfurt, Germany. Reiner Protsch von Zieten, a previous highly respected professor of anthropology, was given an 18-month suspended sentence. Protsch had been debunked some years ago of systematically falsifying the dates of numerous major stone-age relics (see the Guardian and the Spiegel).
Protsch, a professor at the University of Frankfurt and widely recognized expert in carbon data, alleged in the 1980s and 1990s that the “woman from Binshof-Speyer” was 21,300 years old (although her real age emerged as only 3,000 years). In a similar case a 240-year-old skull, the “Paderborn-Sande man”, grew old to a faked-by-Protsch age of 27,400 years. Even the “oldest Hamburgian”, the “Neanderthal from Hahnöfersand” (who, according to Protsch, was aged 36,300), is not a quarter as old. Latest radiocarbon datings taken by the independent Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit measured that the skull has only 7,500 years under his belt.
The University of Frankfurt stated in 2005 that Protsch had fabricated data and plagiarized the works of his colleagues: “[…] Prof. Protsch has forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years”. Protsch, who had headed the Frankfurt University’s institute of anthropology since 1973, persistently defended any allegations even though a former assistant said that Protsch did not know how to handle his own institute’s radiocarbon dating equipment.
Protsch’s work had been cited as evidence that Neanderthal men had once lived in Northern Europe. Now, human prehistory must be written again. “Protsch’s work appeared to prove that anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals had co-existed, and perhaps even had children together”, said one of the archaeologists who had unmasked the scandal, adding that “this now appears to be rubbish. It’s a dating desaster.”
Protsch’s title was faked, too. As the Spiegel reported the Professor “Dr. Dr. Protsch von Zieten” emerged as an ordinary Doctor in the year 2000. His second “Dr.” wasn’t genuine. Thus, Protsch was condemned for title swindle and had to pay a penalty of the equivalent of €14,000.
Even Protsch’s last name (“Reiner Protsch von Zieten”) is arguable. The Spiegel claims that the “von Zieten” title is false, too.
It wasn’t professor Protsch’s misconduct for decades, however, that finally broke his neck. It was his attempt to sell the university’s chimpanzee skull collection to an American collector for $70,000. The lion’s share of the Frankfurt district court’s verdict results from this attempted theft.
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