Indiana Jones Crystal Skull Lawsuit Raises Questions of Hoax

An archaeologist in Belize has filed a lawsuit against the makers of the film "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," alleging that the movie profits off references to an artifact illegally stolen from the country.

But the item in question, a real-life crystal skull, may not be a Belizean artifact carved by the ancient Maya people at all, but rather a hoax perpetrated by a self-styled 20th-century adventurer.

The story starts in the 1930s, when explorer Frederick A. Mitchell-Hedges claims to have found the skull somewhere in Central America. Or maybe it starts in the 1920s: That's when Mitchell-Hedges' daughter, Anna, now deceased, recalled finding the skull in the ancient Maya city of Lubaantún in Belize, though the exact date varied with the telling of the story.

Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf in a scene from "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," out May 22. Also an illustration of the crystal skull.

The skull is smaller than the life-size ones seen in the Indiana Jones film (which are also, spoiler alert, alien in origin). It stands about 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) high, 7 inches tall (17.8 cm) and 5 inches (12.7 cm) wide. The skull is made of beautifully clear polished quartz, with a lower jaw that detaches.

Since it surfaced, the skull has been the subject of many legends. It's said to get its glassy sheen from the efforts of five generations of ancient polishers. It's also been attributed magical powers, from the ability to repel witchcraft to the ability to kill on command. 

Some have contested the truth of the Mitchell-Hedges tale, however: Smithsonian anthropologistJane MacLaren Walsh has examined the Mitchell-Hedges skull and finds that it was carved with high-speed, diamond-coated tools from the 20th century.

"The Mitchell-Hedges crystal skull is not ancient; not even very old. It was probably made in Europe in the 20th century, and was not polished for five generations. It is not powerful, not scary and not at all what it purports to be," Walsh wrote in 2010 in Archaeology, the magazine of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Walsh's investigations of Frederick and Anna Mitchell-Hedges' claims about the skull's discovery also turned up many inconsistencies, she reported. It was likely purchased from an antiquities dealer in London in 1943, Walsh wrote.

The Maya did leave other amazing artistry behind, including a carved limestone monkey skull andelaborate painted murals.

The lawsuit of the crystal skull

The new lawsuit, however, takes the Mitchell-Hedges' claims as truth and argues that by removing this alleged artifact from Belize, Frederick and Anna broke the country's laws. Archaeologist Jaime Awe, the director of the Institute of Archaeology of Belize, filed the lawsuit on behalf of his country.

"The primary goal of the litigation is to: (a) preserve and return the artifact to the people of Belize; (b) to enforce the nation's rights to the artifact and the profits derived therefrom; and (c) to make known to the global community that while a relatively small, yet vibrant and growing nation, Belize will take whatever action necessary to preserve, and prevent the exploitation of its culture and cultural artifacts/landmarks," Awe's lawyer Adam Tracy wrote in an email to LiveScience.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" name-checks the skull, with Indy talking about how he and fellow archaeologist Harold Oxley were obsessed with the find. 

"As the epicenter of Mayan culture, combined with the fact that the known crystal skulls were pilfered from the country, Belize is of the position that the physical artifacts, together with the nomenclature tied thereto, are properties of the people of the Belize," Tracy said.

As such, Awe is suing Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilms and Lucasfilms' new owner Disney for illegally profiting from the skull's likeness. He is also suing the Mitchell-Hedges family for the return of the skull, which is now in possession of Anna's widower, William Homann, in Indiana.

Many mystical skulls

The Mitchell-Hedges' skull is not the only mystical skull out there. There's a Mitchell-Hedges lookalike in the British Museum in London. (Walsh suspects that the Mitchell-Hedges' skull was a copy of the British Museum version). The Musee du Quai Branly in Paris holds another large skull, and a third is in the catalog at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. That Smithsonian skull is approximately life-size at 15 inches (38 cm) tall.

Unfortunately for believers in the Central American occult, not a single one of these skulls has been found to be authentic. The British Museum skull was likely made in the 1800s, according to the museum, based on tool marks left behind from the carving. Likewise, tests carried out on the Paris skull in 2007 and 2008 found it to be a late-1800s forgery. The Smithsonian skull, which happens to be the artifact that got anthropologist Jane MacLaren Walsh interested in investigating crystal skulls, was also carved with modern jewel-cutting equipment.

To test the authenticity of the Mitchell-Hedges' skull, Walsh used high-powered microscopy, ultraviolet light, computerized tomography (CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A real artifact from Central America, created before the arrival of Christopher Columbus would have been carved by stone implements and abrasive sand, Walsh wrote. These tools leave marks that look rough under the microscope. But the Mitchell-Hedges' skull revealed microscopic cut marks that were unmistakably smooth and straight, the telltale signature of a metal tool augmented by diamond.

It remains to be seen whether the skull's veracity will play a role in the Indiana Jones lawsuit.

"The government of Belize does not believe the skull is fake," Tracy told LiveScience. "As such, I do not foresee any further testing of the artifact." ( LiveScience.com )

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Stonehenge skeleton came from Mediterranean

Stonehenge skeleton came from Mediterranean — A wealthy young teenager buried near Britain's mysterious Stonehenge monument came from the Mediterranean hundreds of miles away, scientists said Wednesday, proof of the site's importance as a travel destination in prehistoric times.

The teen — dubbed "The Boy with the Amber Necklace" because he was unearthed with a cluster of amber beads around his neck — is one of several sets of foreign remains found around the ancient ring of imposing stones, whose exact purpose remains unknown.

The British Geological Survey's Jane Evans said that the find, radiocarbon dated to 1,550 B.C., "highlights the diversity of people who came to Stonehenge from across Europe," a statement backed by Bournemouth University's Timothy Darvill, a Stonehenge scholar uninvolved with the discovery.

"The find adds considerable weight to the idea that people traveled long distances to visit Stonehenge, which must therefore have had a big reputation as a cult center," Darvill said in an e-mail Wednesday. "Long distance travel was certainly more common at this time than we generally think."

The skeleton, thought to be that of a 14- or 15-year-old, was unearthed about two miles (3 kilometers) southeast of Stonehenge, in southern England.

Clues to the adolescent's foreign origins could be found in the necklace, which isn't a recognized British type. But he was traced to the area around the Mediterranean Sea by a technique known as isotope analysis, which in this case measured the ratio of strontium and oxygen isotopes in his tooth enamel.

Different regions have different mixes of elements in their drinking water, for example, and some of those are absorbed into a person's tooth enamel as he or she grows up. Analysis of the isotopes of oxygen and strontium carried in the enamel can give scientists a good but rather general idea of where a person was raised.

The teen, whose necklace suggests he came from a rich family, is one of several long-distance travelers found near Stonehenge. The "Amesbury Archer," so-called because of the stone arrowheads he was found with, was buried three miles (5 kilometers) from Stonehenge but is thought to have come from the Alpine foothills of central Europe. The "Boscombe Bowmen," also found nearby, are thought to have come from Wales or possibly Brittany.

It isn't clear precisely what drew these people to Stonehenge, a site which has existed in various forms for some 5,000 years. It clearly had an important ceremonial function, and the area around it is dotted with the remains of prehistoric monuments and tombs. Some say it was at the center of a sun-worshipping culture or that it served as a kind of astronomical calendar.

Others, like Darvill, also say it might have been an important healing site, drawing pilgrims from across Europe like a prehistoric version of Lourdes. ( Associated Press )

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Ancient volcano's devastating effects confirmed

Ancient volcano's devastating effects confirmed. 73,000 years ago, global temperatures dropped by as much as 28 degrees . A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a new study that adds evidence to a controversial topic.

The Toba eruption, which took place on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia about 73,000 years ago, released an estimated 192 cubic miles of ash into the atmosphere that blanketed the skies and blocked out sunlight for six years. In the aftermath, global temperatures dropped by as much as 28 degrees Fahrenheit and life on Earth plunged deeper into an ice age that lasted around 1,800 years.

NASA

This satellite image shows smoldering underground fires that took place at Toba in 1997. A devastating volcanic eruption occurred at the site roughly 73,000 years ago.

In 1998, Stanley Ambrose, an anthropology professor at the University of Illinois, proposed in the Journal of Human Evolution that the effects of the Toba eruption and the Ice Age that followed could explain the apparent bottleneck in human populations that geneticists believe occurred between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. The lack of genetic diversity among humans alive today suggests that during this time period humans came very close to becoming extinct.

To test his theory, Ambrose and his research team analyzed pollen from a marine core in the Bay of Bengal that had a layer of ash from the Toba eruption. The researchers also compared carbon isotope ratios in fossil soil taken from directly above and below the Toba ash in three locations in central India — some 3,000 miles from the volcano — to pinpoint the type of vegetation that existed at various locations and time periods.

Heavily forested regions leave carbon isotope fingerprints that are distinct from those of grasses or grassy woodlands.

The tests revealed a distinct change in the type of vegetation in India immediately after the Toba eruption. The researchers write in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology that their analysis indicates a shift to a "more open vegetation cover and reduced representation of ferns," which grow in humid conditions, all of which "would suggest significantly drier conditions in this region for at least 1,000 years after the Toba eruption."

The dryness probably also indicates a drop in temperature "because when you turn down the temperature you also turn down the rainfall," Ambrose said. "This is unambiguous evidence that Toba caused deforestation in the tropics for a long time."

He also concluded that the disaster may have forced the ancestors of modern humans to adopt new cooperative strategies for survival that eventually permitted them to replace Neanderthals and other archaic human species.

Although humans survived the event, researchers have detected increasing activity underneath a caldera at Yellowstone National Park, where some suspect another supervolcanic eruption will eventually take place. Though not expected to occur anytime soon, a Yellowstone eruption could coat half the United States in a layer of ash up to 3 feet (1 meter) deep. (Livescience.com )

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