Day 1 of my Carolina junket is in the books. Here are some highlights:

The Lizard Man of Lee County 

Given the wishes of at least one of my readers, and the graphic fantasies of some of my students last semester, the safe play would have been to blow right by Lee County, South Carolina, home of the storied Lizard Man.  But, you know, you've got to eat lunch somewhere.   

I had a nice chat with Mr. Eddie Grant, Executive Director of the South Carolina Cotton Museum in Bishopville. It's a nice museum: I learned a lot about cotton agriculture and processing in the state, and the museum has lots of interesting technological artifacts related to the history of the cotton industry. ​The Lizard Man exhibit is limited to a single case displaying copies of the footprint casts, some t-shirts, and a sign from the Butterbean shed that was the location of one of the reported sightings.  Mr. Grant told me that opinion in the town is divided between those who welcome the attention (and money) that the Lizard Man brings to Bishopville and those who think that the whole debacle makes the town look stupid.

I didn't do a scientific survey, but no-one I talked to believed in the Lizard Man or knew anyone else in town who believed in the Lizard Man. Here is a short video about the College of Charleston's 2011 Lizard Man expedition. There's a 2013 book by Lyle Blackburn that I could read, but . . . life is very short. Moving on.

More interesting to me than the Lizard Man was the history of Scape Ore Swamp, the purported home of the Lizard Man. While I was at the Cotton Museum, Mr. Grant showed me a map (dated 1822) that identified the swamp as "Scape Whore" swamp. He speculated that perhaps the name change was relatively recent. Messing around on my phone while I ate my lunch, I found this 2005 story by W. A. “Bubba” McElveen in The Sumter Item that investigated the history of the swamp's name. The name "Scape Ore Swamp" is apparently a time-mangled derivation of "Escaped Whore Swamp," a name that may have been bestowed either during the Revolutionary War or sometime earlier. 

As reported by McElveen (quoting a 1965 publication by the University of South Carolina Department of English), the Revolutionary War version of the story goes like this:

“Scape ‘Ore Swamp, located near Bishopville, was originally named Escaped Whore Swamp by a group of Revolutionary Volunteers. These soldiers, part of Marion’s Brigade, surprised an encampment of British Regulars who were in the process of entertaining ladies of rather shady backgrounds. The British were captured and the Volunteers allowed the terrified women to flee into the Swamp.”

Whether that's the real origin of the name or not, it got me wondering how much we know about colonial-era prostitution and whether there's ever been an attempt to use archaeology to understand prostitution in the past. A Google search on "brothel archaeology" returns hits relevant to both the New World and Old World . . . but I'm sitting in a hotel room in Wilmington right now and it's almost eleven o'clock so I'm just going to have to let that one sit for now. 

Doing My Part to Fund Fiberglass Fantasy

Finally, some fiberglass surrealism.  

I stumbled across what I later learned is called Grahamland: a work-in-progress fiberglass sculpture operation that is attempting to transform several acres along US 74 west of Wilmington into an amusement park. I'm for just about anything that breaks up the monotony of Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and BP stations along our highways. And I'll put my money where my mouth is: I pulled in and paid my $10 to walk around and take pictures.

I had a shot conversation with Betty Rose Dolce, the wife half of the husband-wife team that is Grahamland Amusement Fiberglass Art. I learned a bit more from watching this short (7:00) video. Apparently there will be a full-length documentary about Grahamland screened in Wilmington this November.

The beach ball woman emerging from the bank of the pond is a take on a Uniroyal Gal, the originals of which date to the mid-1960's. There is another statue at Grahamland that appears to be a Uniroyal Gal modified to be a cowgirl. I'm guessing Grahamland owns a Uniroyal Girl mold? If I had known what I was looking at while I was there, I would have asked Betty Rose Dolce about it in person.

I kicked myself a few minutes after I left because I didn't think to get a photo of Betty Rose Dolce with one of her creations. If you're reading this, Betty, I hope I can come back some day and see what you've accomplished. 

Regular readers of this blog may remember last year's story of the Helenwood Devil, an anthropomorphic clay statue made in the 1920's apparently for the purpose of liberating money from the gullible and/or curious. I was made aware of the Helenwood Devil (aka "The Devil of Scott County") in a piece about a "race of horned humans" posted by Kristan Harris. The account also appeared on the Greater Ancestors World Museum (GAWM) website, where it was interpreted as good evidence for angel-human hybridization.

To Harris' credit, he edited his story after I wrote about the artificial origin of the "devil" statue. The tale remains on the GAWM website to this day, however, serving as evidence not of the Nephilim but of what happens when you are so in love with an idea that you can't even bear to shine the dimmest critical light on your heap of "evidence."  Just look at the thing: 

You've really got to hold your nose to let that thing pass the sniff test.

With Harris' rejection of the Devil, membership in the Fan Club was down to one. It is with regret but not surprise, however, that I report to you that membership is up: the account of the Helenwood Devil is, once again, put forth as "evidence" for whatever it is that Fritz Zimmerman is talking about in his 2015 book The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America.  The book, which appears to be yet another uncritical cut-and-paste compilation of media accounts marketed as "research," includes the Helenwood Devil in the chapter titled "Giant Humans With Horns" (pg. 295). Either Zimmerman didn't do the basic research necessary to discover that the Helenwood Devil was actually a clay statue, or he doesn't care.  I'm not sure which is worse, and I'm not sure it matters.  Uncritically presenting the Helenwood Devil account as "evidence" for anything is, in my opinion, a self-evident demonstration of an extreme disinterest in  the process or outcomes of research. That's as nicely as I can put it.

Here's another post about how the inability or unwillingness to use whatever tools are available to discriminate between credible and non-credible evidence is symptomatic of pseudo-science in general.

On a related note, L. A. Marzulli vouches for Zimmerman's abilities in the forward (sic) to the Encyclopedia, stating that Zimmerman is a "champion of the truth" and a "class A researcher."  So there you go.

Like many Americans, I am horrified by what has unfolded in this country over the last several days: the killing of Alton Sterling in Louisiana, the killing of Philando Castile in Minnesota, and now the killings of police officers in Dallas. 

I don't know that I can add anything profound to the conversation at this point, but I wanted to say something rather than just staying silent. I think it's vitally important for this nation that we both have this conversation and, ultimately, move beyond it and into actively working to change where we are. There's no doubt the conversation is complex (race, class, power, justice, guns . . .) and there's no doubt that it will be hard to have. It will be a lot of work to dig ourselves out of where we are. But we have to do it: it's not going to fix itself.

Leadership requires something more than reacting. As I am writing this, I have seen nothing resembling leadership from those that our major political parties will nominate as their candidates for president. This is troubling.

From Clinton, we got a tweet characterizing the killing of Philando Castile as a "tragedy." At least that was something: from Trump, we got a tweet about the use of a six-pointed star on the cover of a book about the Disney movie Frozen. (Update: according to this Wall Street Journal piece, Clinton will address the shootings in a speech later today).

It's no secret that social media has played a powerful role in spreading information and influencing the debate about issues of race in this country. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have made it possible to shine a light on things many Americans would like to pretend don't exist. Well, they do exist. Now what are we going to do about it?  Alone, most of us are very limited in our ability to marshall resources to effect change. Our leaders, conversely, are in a much stronger position. And this is why they have to lead.  Tweeting is not leading. It is, quite literally, just about the least they can do.

I'm imagining both of our major presidential candidates doing the calculus to figure out what they can say in this situation to help themselves get elected. Maybe I'm wrong and that's not what they're doing. Maybe they're doing some hard thinking and not just lost in triangulation. But it troubles me that my expectations, correct or not, are so low. The issues that we have to face and address are not simple. They will require more than 140 characters.

A year ago, I was on the road with my daughter on the way to an Against Me! concert in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In our hotel room on the morning of July 10, we watched the lowering of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina State House live on CNN. That symbol was retired from that location as a direct result of the race-motivated mass shooting in Charleston in mid-June. It  made me very hopeful to see that flag come down from the capitol of my soon-to-be home. Not everyone here feels that way: the South Carolina Secessionst Party plans to hold a flag-raising rally on the State House grounds this Sunday (the anniversary of the flag removal).

Although I'm not sure what, exactly, I can do or say to be part of a solution in this country, I do know that staying silent and pretending we don't have a problem isn't going to cut it. Neither is simply tweeting condolences or outrage. It is not responsible for me to just do nothing. It's important that we take real steps to grapple with these issues, and it's fair to ask our wannabe leaders to show some leadership.

Thanks to my wife, I'm going to be taking a few days off soon to do one of the things I love the most: hitting the road alone with not much more than spare clothes. a toothbrush, and a little cash. In my opinion, wandering is the best way to learn about your world. There are interesting people, places, and stories everywhere. But they take some time, attention, and flexibility to find. I don't get those things in combination much these days, so I'm grateful for the opportunity.  Cue the music:

Yes, I'll be driving a Camry. 

This time around, I'll be in southern North Carolina and/or northern South Carolina. I'll probably stay within a broad corridor stretching from Wilmington to Asheville. The only destination I have planned is a stop at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte. I would be interested to hear about any interesting "off the beaten" path locations in the vicinity of U.S. 74, anywhere from the coast to the mountains. Readers of this blog won't be surprised at the kinds of things I'll go out of my way to see: small museums, junk yards, dinosaurs, aircraft, folk art, dragonfly habitat, and just about anything that can interpreted as the visible product of active imagination. If you have suggestions for the region, let me know! 

Back in May I wrote this post about famous racist anthropologist Ernst Haeckel's ideas about human evolution and the lost continent of Lemuria.  In the late 1800's, Haeckel proposed that some kind of "speechless men or ape-like men" was the common ancestor of the various human populations that he thought were actually different species. Haeckel used the term Pithecanthropi (literally "ape men") to refer to his proto-humans.

I found it interesting that Haeckel was using the term Pithecanthropi years before it was used to name the "Java Man" fossils found by Eugene Dubois in Indonesia in 1891.  As best I can tell, Haeckel coined "Pithecanthropi"  to describe his hypothetical, speechless proto-human "missing link" between apes and humans (the earliest use of the term I can find is in the 1876 edition of History of Creation). Haeckel invented Pithecanthropi to describe something that he thought should have existed according to his model of human evolution, rather than something that could be shown to have actually existed based on fossil evidence. Pithecanthropus was a pre-construction rather than a re-construction.

Haeckel's manufactured genus was so important to his ideas about human evolution that artist Gabriel Max gave Haeckel a drawing of a family of Pithecanthropus for his 60th birthday in 1894. The picture displays the human-like differentiated hands and feet that Haeckel presumed would have been present.

(An aside: look closely at the female's right foot -- it looks to me like she has a divergent big toe.  It's interesting that available fossil evidence [such as Little Foot] demonstrate that Australopithecines retained a somewhat opposable big toe like non-human apes.  A grasping toe is also present in the the 4.4 million-year-old skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, which may or may not be a human ancestor. There is no evidence that I know of which suggests that Homo erectus had a foot significantly different from modern humans). 

So why did Eugene Dubois name his fossils Pithecanthropus erectus?  Was the choice of name an endorsement of Haeckel's ideas?

Yes, apparently.

Dubois wasn't a student of Haeckel's, but was apparently significantly influenced by Haeckel's ideas both in terms of the notion that there should be a "missing link" between apes and humans and fossil evidence for that creature could likely be found in tropical Asia. Dubois' decision to name the fossils he found in Indonesia Pithecanthropus is not a coincidence but a direct reflection of his appreciation for Haeckel's ideas about human evolution.

It seems that Dubois' decision to look for the "missing link" in southeast Asia wasn't just some random gamble based on an original idea he had that humans were descended from orangutans: it was inspired by Haeckel's writings. The biography of Dubois on Talk Origins doesn't mention a connection between Dubois' ideas and those of Haeckel. The New World Encyclopedia entry about Dubois also doesn't mention Haeckel (but  Dubois' Wikipedia entry does). Pat Shipman's 2002 biography of Dubois (The Man Who Found the Missing Link), which I have not yet read, also discusses the connection between Haeckel and Dubois.

I think we could do a better job of confronting the history of racism in our discipline. While our current ideas about human evolution may ultimately be unaffected by whatever was in Dubois' head when he found the first fossils of what we now classify as Homo erectus in Indonesia, it isn't appropriate to try to scrub the "discovery" narrative clean of its historical and cultural context. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but it's interesting that so many online sources of information about Dubois don't mention what looks like a fairly clear relationship between his career path and Haeckel's ideas.

I've been working on my Tyrannosaurus rex sculpture as I've had opportunities over the last couple of months. I keep thinking "hey, it's almost done." And then I work on it for a few more hours and it still doesn't seem "done." Eventually I'll reach some threshold and just call it good and move on. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting pretty close.

Here are some photos from today:

In case you can't tell, I'm pretty happy with the way this is turning out. And I wanted to say "thank you," Columbia, for putting so much usable scrap metal out on the curb.

Although I brought a lot of the scrap I used to make this thing with me from Michigan (I've been in town for less than a year), I couldn't have built my Tyrannosaurus rex without your discarded bed frames, lawn furniture, weed trimmers, cooling racks, bicycles, lamps, pots and pans, candle holders, and plant stands. I had to buy some rebar (for the base) and a few other odds and ends, but mostly Columbia provided the materials.

As this sculpture nears completion, I'm thinking about my next project. I have a lot of sentimental attachment to most of things I've made so far, and I have yet to make anything to sell. This was a big project, though, and a lot of my "sentimental scrap" (yes, there is such a thing) is gone. As my collection of materials becomes more and more the result of scavenging from Columbia's bountiful curb piles, I think it will be easier and easier to contemplate making something to sell.  Anyone out there in the Columbia area interested in a T rex for the garden? Or a giant rooster? Let me know and we'll see what we can do.

I'm not sure how I would price something like this: although most of the materials were free, I did put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (literally) and a significant amount of time. And there are costs associated with expendable supplies (welding wire, metal cutting disks, drill bits, etc.). This one's not for sale, anyway, but maybe the next one will be.

I have been living in South Carolina for less than a year. While I still have a lot to learn about local and regional culture, I have picked up a few things.  In the spirit of my adopted home, I made this card for J. Hutton Pulitzer:

If you don't understand the meaning of the phrase, look it up in the Urban Dictionary.

Pulitzer has been taking "pre-order" money for books titled Solomon's Secret and Commodus's Secret since at least November of 2014. He's been taking money and providing in return a "100% guarantee" that those who pre-ordered the book(s) can get their money back at any time. The estimated shipping date, meanwhile, has been a moving target.  When I wrote about all of this during #Swordgate, the websites and videos advertising the books suddenly disappeared. I've been contacted by several people who tell me they've tried to contact Pulitzer to get their money back, but their emails go unanswered (PayPal does not refund money after 180 days, so that's no longer an option for those that ordered the package long ago). The last online presence for marketing the books that I'm aware of (a Facebook page) became inaccessible last night as Pulitzer made this promise on the Fake Hercules Swords Facebook group through a third party:​

And when I click on that link, I get this message:

"This download link (https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/df.php?txn_id=XXXXX) has expired. Please contact the merchant at [email protected]."

That's it. You're at a dead end. Several people have told me that Pulitzer and/or whoever is supposed to be answering the emails is not replying to their requests for instructions on getting a refund. Notice that this person ordered in 2014, so the 180 day PayPal window has long since closed. I wrote an email to [email protected] (as the Rip-Off Report response stated I should) but have not gotten a response.  The person who emailed me the receipt wrote this:

"Andy,

This is what I got when I pre-ordered the Solomon's secret book. The link never gave me anything when I clicked it. Now its expired. No one responds to emails at the gmail account. I finally got Pulitzer to respond to a message on Facebook. He told me I had to get a refund through PayPal. But, PayPal only lets you do that for 6 months. Then you are out of luck."

I extend an open invitation to Pulitzer to visit us on Facebook and explain what is going on with these book orders.  

My unsolicited advice is this: refund all the money to everyone and then let those who still want the books (should they ever be produced) order them again. That would be the responsible thing to do at this point.  

I think there are probably legal options available to those of you who have attempted to get your money back but have been unsuccessful.