Message #273 Date: Tue Dec 29 21:06:05 1998 Subject: AAA Piltdown Prize [ AzTeC / SWA SASIG ] : From: Mara Greengrass mgreengr@ameranthassn.org To anthropologists interested in pseudoscience, I wanted to call your attention to a new award being given by the American Anthropological Association, the Piltdown Prize. I urge you to please submit an entry or entries. Following is the announcement, which appeared in the December _Anthropology Newsletter_. Mara Greengrass, Program Assistant, Government and Media Relations 703-528-1902 x3029 The AN's Piltdown Prize is your opportunity to tell us what's really gotten your goat as an anthropologist. It will be given to whomever or whatever was the biggest banana peel in the road of the discipline in the past year. Winners can be a person, place, organization, thing, idea or cartoon character--as long as it's not a fellow anthropologist or the AAA. Be prepared to explain how this entity has set back the field of anthropology. Possible nominations for this year might be as small as the zillionth edition of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (management is that simple?), or as all encompassing as capitalism (who needs money anyway?). Semi-Official Rules 1) All entries must include an explanation, don't assume we know everything that happens in the wide world of anthropology. 2) Mean-spirited entries, or entries picking on other anthropologists or the AAA will be summarily discarded. 3) Judging will be at the whim of the AAA staff, their friends, families and pets. 4) Entries will be judged on humor, truthfulness, humor, aerodynamics of the printout, humor and grammar, but not necessarily in that order. 5) All entries must be received by January 31, 1998 and winners will be printed in the To Wit column of the AN. So, what irritated you in 1998? Send your nominations and let your kvetch be heard. Send nominations to Mara Greengrass, 4350 N Fairfax Dr, Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203-1621; mgreengr@ameranthassn.org. [Mara is the Program Assistant for Government and Media Relations, even though her mother wishes she were a doctor.] Piltdown Prize Example #1 Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the video store, it's Technologies of the Gods. Yes, the children of von Daniken live, and these days they are living at Fox Lorber Associates and Mystic Fire Video. The AAA office recently received a press release trumpeting a new video. They "present an unorthodox case for pre-historic high technology." Apparently "the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Mayan Temples were built with high-tech engineering methods equal to, if not superior, to those used today." Aliens, lost technology... Sound familiar? Do we have to do this all over again? Thank you, film makers, for setting back public knowledge of archaeology at least 50 years.